HOMOGENEITY ADJUSTMENTS OF IN-SITU ATMOSPHERIC CLIMATE DATA - A REVIEW

Long-term in situ observations are widely used in a variety of climate analyses. Unfortunately, most decade- to century-scale time series of atmospheric data have been adversely impacted by inhomogeneities caus ed by, for example, changes in instrumentation, station moves, changes in the local environment such as urbanization, or the introduction of different observing practices like a new formula for calculating mean daily temperature or different observation times. If these inhomogene ities are not accounted for properly, the results of climate analyses using these data on be erroneous. Over the last decade, many climatolo gists have put a great deal of effort into developing techniques to id entify inhomogeneities and adjust climatic time series to compensate f or the biases produced by the inhomogeneities. It is important for use rs of homogeneity-adjusted data to understand how the data were adjust ed and what impacts these adjustments are likely to make on their anal yses. And it is important for developers of homogeneity-adjusted data sets to compare readily the different techniques most commonly used to day. Therefore, this paper reviews the methods and techniques develope d for homogeneity adjustments and describes many different approaches and philosophies involved in adjusting in situ climate data. (C) 1998 Royal Meteorological Society.