Uncertainty in hottest years ranking: analysis of Tibetan Plateau surface air temperature

Abstract

AbstractChanges in surface air temperature can directly affect hydrology, agriculture, and ecosystems through extreme climate events such as heat waves. For this reason, and to improve climate change adaptation strategies, it is important to investigate the ranking of hottest years. In this study, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Monte Carlo simulation are used to estimate the ranking of the hottest years for the Tibetan Plateau (TP) in recent decades, and the uncertainty in the ranking. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test shows that the top 10 hottest years on record over the TP mainly occur after 1998. The top three hottest years are ranked as 2006, 2009, and 2010, but there is almost no significant difference between them. When both sampling and observational errors are considered, only five years have a non-zero probability of being the hottest year, with the three highest probabilities being for the years 2006 (~47.231%), 2009 (~40.390%), and 2010 (~12.376%). Similarly, with respect to a given year that i...