Homogenization of Long-Term Time-Series of Temperature Records in Cyprus

Abstract

Climate research necessitates a methodical and detailed examination of long-term time-series of meteorological observations. The existence of quality of homogenous datasets is of paramount importance for such studies. The climatological database of the Cyprus Department of Meteorology consists of observations from a big number of stations, several of which contain records for some parameters, extending from the beginning of the twentieth century, but for varying time periods. Special care is taken for the quality of the observational data registered in the database but there has been virtually no effort made so far for the homogenization of the database. The aim of that paper was the homogenisation of the maximum temperature from 31 main meteorological stations of Cyprus during the period of 1959–2013, as well as the correction and analysis of the results over that period. Moreover, the paper contains the detection and correction of the possible invalid data, the replacement of the time-series’ missed values and the calculation of the correlation coefficient between all the understudying stations.