Abstract
The majority of weather station records indicate that surface air temperatures have been warming in California between 1950 and 2005. Temperature data from the mid-1990s to the present were analyzed for stations on California Central Coast near Big Sur (Monterey County) to better understand potential for climate change in this biologically unique region. Results showed that daily temperatures in both the winter and summer seasons have cooled the Big Sur coast, particularly after 2003. A current hypothesis is that observed coastal California cooling derives from greenhouse gas-induced regional warming of the inland Central Valley and Sierra Nevada foothill areas, resulting in stronger sustained on-shore sea-breeze flow. Closer examination of daily temperature records at a station location near the Big Sur coast revealed that, even as average monthly maximum temperatures (Tmax) have decreased gradually, the number of extreme warm summer days (Tmax > 37 °C) has also increased by several fold in frequency. Overall patterns in the station records since the mid-1990s indicated that diurnal temperature ranges are widening on the Big Sur coast, with markedly cooler nighttime temperatures (frequently in the wet winter season) followed by slightly higher-than-average daytime temperatures, especially during the warm, dry summer season.
Highlights
The Pacific coastal region of California has been found to be an extremely narrow but coherent climatologic zone, typically less than 30 km wide, and much narrower in Central California near BigSur (Monterey County) where the steepest coastal elevations gradients in North America are found [1].The Central Coast is where the wet, cooler climate of the northern California region meets the dry, warmer climate of the southern region [2]
The results from this study offer new evidence of potential climate change impacts on California’s coastal zone
The results showed a non-significant statistical relationship, such that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) did not explain a more than about 10% of the variation in monthly land temperatures on the Big Sur coast
Summary
The Pacific coastal region of California has been found to be an extremely narrow but coherent climatologic zone, typically less than 30 km wide, and much narrower in Central California near BigSur (Monterey County) where the steepest coastal elevations gradients in North America are found [1].The Central Coast is where the wet, cooler climate of the northern California region meets the dry, warmer climate of the southern region [2]. Lebassi et al analyzed summer (June–August) air temperature records from 1950 to 2005 for two California coastal regions, the South Coast Air Basin and the San Francisco Bay Area, and reported cooling (−0.30 °C·decade−1) in low-elevation coastal areas open to marine air penetration and warming (0.32 °C·decade−1) in inland areas [5]. These investigators surmised that the coastal cooling trends have resulted from the consistent summer warming of inland valley areas, which resulted in increased sea-breeze flow activity at the coast. Cooling trends may come in different forms, such a predominantly nighttime vs. predominantly daytime cooling, which can have differing and important implications for natural and human systems alike
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