Central American climate extreme trends: A statistical analysis of CLIMDEX indices

Abstract

Precipitation and temperature extremes from daily data indexed using the CLIMDEX methodology were calculated over the Central American region. The data comprises the coarsened versions of the Climate Hazards and Infrared Precipitation with stations (CHIRPs) and the corresponding data set for temperature (CHIRTs) from the year 1981 to 2020 and 1983 to 2016, respectively. The objective is to detect trend patterns in extremes in recent periods, use novel statistical techniques for assessing the trend significance and study the monthly and annual trends for each of the indices. Trends of extreme temperature indices show more consistent, robust and widespread significant results according with the observed warming of the region. Significant extreme precipitation indices trends are more localized, and therefore harder to analyse, but it seems that one robust result from several indices is the trend toward more intense extreme precipitation events in Costa Rica. The findings of this work suggest possible impacts in human and environmental systems across the region.