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Quantile spline models for global temperature change

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Abstract

The Hansen and Lebedeff data set on global surface air temperature change is reanalyzed using smoothing splines designed to estimate the conditional quantile functions of global temperature over the last century. It is assumed only that the quantiles are smooth functions of time. The smoothness of the fitted quantile functions is determined by a data driven version of the Schwarz criterion. The estimates offer statistical evidence of a break in the generally upward sloping trend of the temperature series during the period from 1940 to 1965, a finding originally suggested by Hansen and Lebedeff (1987).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana and Champaign, 61820, Champaign, IL, USA

    Roger Koenker

  2. Fachbereich Rechts- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Frank Schorfheide

Authors
  1. Roger Koenker
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  2. Frank Schorfheide
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Koenker, R., Schorfheide, F. Quantile spline models for global temperature change. Climatic Change 28, 395–404 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01104081

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01104081

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