Um monitoramento estatístico da mudança de temperatura nas cidades de Natal, Ceará-Mirim e Cruzeta

Abstract

Global warming is one of the most widely discussed topics in many areas of knowledge today. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), from January to June 2015 the average global temperature on land and ocean surfaces was the warmest ever recorded. The objective of this work is to compare the slopes of the mean series of the observed temperatures in three meteorological stations of the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET), from 1987 to 2016, with the temperatures observed in the same meteorological stations from 1973 to 2003. Besides these comparisons, this work also aims to compare the averages of the temperature series observed in the INMET station of Natal, from 1987 to 2016, with those observed during the same period in the meteorological station of the central campus of UFRN. Monthly data were used and the regression method was used to initially estimate the seasonality of each series. Then, the linear trends of the seasonally adjusted series were estimated and the comparisons of the slopes for each meteorological station of said series were performed, in the two periods considered. For all the comparisons made, no statistically significant difference was detected in the slope of the mean series. It is concluded that the temperature continues with the same trend of growth observed for the period from 1973 to 2003, from the series of the stations of the three municipalities.