Mean annual temperature and total annual precipitation trends at Canadian biosphere reserves

This article examines instrumental climate records from a variety of statio ns associated with the following Biosphere Reserves across Canada: (i) Wate rton Lakes, (ii) Riding Mountain, (iii) Niagara Escarpment, (iv) Long Point , and (v) Kejimkujik (Candidate Biosphere Reserve). Annual series are gener ated from daily temperature and precipitation values. In addition, homogene ous data are used from other stations and regional records to supplement th e records from the local biosphere stations. Long term trends are identifie d over the period of the instrumental record. In general, data from the int erval 1900 to 1998 show cooler temperatures in the 1920's, warming from the early 1940's into the early 1950's, cooling into the 1970's, and subsequen t warming. At many stations, 1998 is the warmest in the instrumental record . Comparisons with the regional data sets show good agreements between the temperature series. The 20th century warming is approximately 1.0 degreesC in the Riding Mountain area and 0.6 degreesC in the Long Point, Niagara Esc arpment, and Waterton Lakes areas. There has been slight cooling in the Kej imkujik area over the past half century. Precipitation data show increasing trends in the Kejimkujik, Long Point, Niagara Escarpment, and Waterton Lak es areas with no long term trend in the Riding Mountain area. This work is part of the Canadian Biosphere Reserves Association (CBRA) Climate Change I nitiative (CCI), designed to present climate change information to Biospher e Reserve communities to allow local organizations to understand climate ch ange and adapt to potential impacts.