Can innovative trend analysis identify trend change points?

Abstract

Trends in temperature series are the main cause of climate change. Because solar energy directs hydro-meteorological events and increasing variations in this resource change the balance between events such as evaporation, wind, and rainfall. There are many methods for calculating trends in a time series such as Mann-Kendall, Sen's slope estimator, Spearman's rho, linear regression and the new Sen innovative trend analysis (ITA). In addition, Mann-Kendall's variant, the sequential Mann Kendall, has been developed to identify trend change points; however, it is sensitive to related data as specified by some researchers. Şen_ITA is a new trend detection method and does not require independent and normally distributed time series, but has never been used to detect trend change points. In the literature, multiple, half-time and multi-durations ITA methods are used to calculate partial trends in a time series without identifying trend change points. In this study, trend change points are detected using the Şen_ITA method and named ITA_TCP. This approach may allow researchers to identify trend change points in a time series. Diyarbakır (Turkey) is selected as a study area, and ITA_TCP has detected trends and trends change points in monthly average temperatures. Although ITA detects only a significant upward trend in August, given the 95% statistical significance level, ITA_TCP shows three upward trends in June, July and August, and a decreasing trend in September. Critical trend slope values are obtained using the bootstrap method, which does not require the normal distribution assumption.