Relationship between sunshine duration and air temperature and contemporary global warming

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe the variability of sunshine duration and air temperature and to assess the relationship between these variables. The paper is based on daily means of air temperature and daily sunshine duration totals from the 1884–2012 period. The variability analyses of these variables for the whole period is supplemented by additional trend analyses for two separate time periods described in the literature as dimming (1958–1985) and brightening (1985–2012). All the data come from the Jagiellonian University Research Station in Krakow. In Krakow, there is a decrease in the number of sunshine hours in the 1950s to 1980s period followed by an increase in the last two decades of the 20th century. The long-term course of air temperature in Krakow confirms the results obtained in other places in the world and exhibits increasing warming of the climate. The temperature increase is visible in each month but is highest in winter (exceeding 1.5 °C per 100 years). Therefore, it may be assumed that the increase in air temperature, which has been particularly strong since the 1980s, showed the full effect of global warming in the brightening period that was previously masked by global dimming as shown in the sunshine duration records. The time course of air temperature for the whole study period (1884–2012) shows a statistically significant positive linear trend. The present warming is influenced probably by the air-quality improvement (brightening period) and an increase in sunshine duration in the years 1980–2012.