Evaluation of a Long-Term (1882–2005) Equivalent Temperature Time Series

Abstract

Abstract A 124 (1882–2005) summer record of total surface energy content consisting of time series of surface equivalent temperature (TE) and its components T (mean air temperature) and Lq/cp (moist enthalpy, denoted Lq) is developed, quality controlled, and analyzed for Columbus, Ohio, where long records of monthly dewpoint temperature are available. The analysis shows that the highest TE occurs during the summer of 1995 when both T and Lq were very high, associated with a severe midwestern heat wave. That year contrasts with the hot summers of 1930–36, when Lq and TE had relatively low or negative anomalies (low humidity) compared to those of T. Following the 1930–36 summers, T and Lq departures are much more typically the same sign in individual summers, and the two parameters develop a statistically significant high positive correlation into the twenty-first century. Mean T and Lq departures from the long-term normal have opposite signs, however, when summers are stratified either by seasonal total rainfall amounts or by the Palmer drought severity soil moisture index. Normalized trends of T, Lq, and TE are downward from 1940 to 1964 with those of TE exceeding T. Since 1965, however, significant positive T trends slightly exceed TE in magnitude and those of dewpoint temperature and Lq are comparatively lower. A highly significant upward trend in minimum temperatures especially dominates the T variability, creating a significant downward trend in the temperature range that dominates recent summer climate variability more than moisture trends. Regional moisture flux variations are largest away from Columbus, over the upper Midwest and western Atlantic Ocean, during its seasonal extremes in total surface energy.