A PAPER REVIEW

ON THE STUDY OF

Thelma A. Cinco | Rosalina G. De Guzman | Flaviana D. Hilario |

David M. Wilson

ENTITLED

LONG-TERM TRENDS AND EXTREMES IN OBSERVED DAILY

PRECIPITATION AND NEAR SURFACE AIR TEMPERATURE IN THE
PHILIPPINES FOR THE PERIOD 1951-2010

REVIEWED BY

Eugene Paula J. Arnold

Dyan L. Lubguban
Andro M. Soriano

SUBMITTED TO

Engr. Edward Caezar D.C. Alimorong

Instructor

October 07, 2019

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1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The Philippines receives 2000mm amount of rainfall annually on average, the

two major monsoon seasons; the northeast monsoon (NEM) from the month of
November to April and the southwest monsoon (SWM) from May to October contributes
huge influence on the recorded precipitation. Considering the Philippines as one of the
most at risk nation regarding to the impacts of climate change, studying its changes is the
most important to predict and identify the possible threats. The study analyzed the
precipitation and temperature extreme under the period of 1951-2010 that were relative
to the mean baseline values in year 1961 until 1990.

1.1. Warming trends and temperature extremes for the period of 1951-2010
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report
(IPCC AR5) indicate that climate change is “unequivocal”, that changes since mid-
20th century are “unprecedented” and very likely due to the increase in the
atmospheric concentration of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (IPCC, 2013a).
Emission of GHG’s is one of the major concerns as it remains in the atmosphere
for a long period, and aggravates the future warming that could harm the nations
near at risk due to extreme climate change.

1.1.1. Impacts of Climate change

Mostly developing nations cannot easily handle the impacts of climate
change, including the rising sea levels due thermal expansion and the
melting of polar ice caps, changes in the frequency and intensity of flood
and drought will disproportionately affected. (ADB, 2009; Cruz et al.,
2007; IPCC, 2012). Climate change affects the agricultural productions
and human activities, and the changes in hydrological cycle events
causing more damage than before.

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 1.1.2. Alteration in sub-national effects of El Nino-Southern Oscillation
(ENSO)
Regional studies have noted the increase in frequency and intensity of El
Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events and tropical cyclones originating
in the Pacific (Trenberth et al., 2007, Lyon and Camargo, 2008) brings
much damage due to increase in rain that create landslides and severe
flooding that results loss of life and livelihood. During El Nino drought and
shortage of water have been experienced, on year 1997 to 1998 late onset
of the southwest monsoon (wet season) led to water shortage crop failures
and forest fires in some area of the Philippines. (Cruz et al., 2007, 2013;
Moya and Malayang, 2004)

Therefore, the predicted data of temperature changes, daily time series for
precipitation and extreme events through direct observations is important to
provide appropriate response to the multiple climate changes. However,
long-term climatic data for Southern East Asia and Asia-Pacific region is
limited. In the case of the Philippines, out of the 5-weather station selected,
three stations met the criteria in terms of data quality. These three
collaborate to produce a robust data set for the region, globally contributes
to record, detect and monitor climate change.

2. OBJECTIVES
1. Analyze and quantify near surface temperature trends
2. Identify trends in extreme temperature and rainfall events (climate extremes)
3. Discuss the results and their significance in a national, regional and global context

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3. MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY
3.1. Temperature trends
The study area considered was Philippines and situated in the western north Pacific
with an area of almost 30M hectares and consisting of more than 7000 islands. It is
considered as one of the developing countries most vulnerable to the effects of
climate change as a percentage of the population lives near the coast and
mountainous land settings and the intensity of tropical cyclones resulting to
flooding and landslides.

3.2. Climate of the location

The climate is determined by monsoon, tropical cyclones, and ENSO(El Nino –

Southern Oscillation) events. The northeast monsoon and southwest monsoon has
the greatest effect on the precipitation of the country.

3.2.1. Rainfall amount

Although there is variation on the location of the weather stations,

annually Philippines roughly receives 2000 mm of rainfall. Variation of
rainfall spatially is identified at the mountainous areas and the far south
continually affecting the southwest monsoon leading to later occurrence
of the wet season in the north eastern of the country.

3.2.2. Unpredictable rainfall amount and occurrence

Developing countries with growing population experience negative effect

due to the unpredictable timing of the monsoon rains leading to flood,
drought, and tropical cyclones.

3.3. Data gathering

The time series data set formulated for daily near surface temperature and
precipitation came from the 1951 – 2010 collection of daily rainfall and
temperature of the Philippines Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical

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 Services Administration (PAGASA). The reference data set for mean, minimum,
and maximum temperatures, extreme temperatures, and precipitation events was
from period 1961 – 1990. Data collected from stations in Baguio and Malaybalay
are located in upland areas which were taken note of when considering rainfall
extremes.

3.3.1. Criteria for the quality of data

The quality of the data from a station must only be considered if: the data
collected was from 1951 – present, not more than 20% of daily values
were missing, the station was highly maintained, and the station stayed at
a single place during the recorded period.

3.3.2. Discontinuities of data

Data discontinuities may be due to changing location of the synoptic

stations, change in the techniques in data gathering, and mechanical
damage to the station and was corrected statistically.

Outliers (data outside three standard deviations) were removed which also
meant possible trend was not identified. The data was formed into a series
creating mean, minimum, maximum daily temperatures, annual
precipitation then subjected to Multiple Analysis of Series for
Homogenization thus, comparing the target data to similar stations in order
to assess changes. If the discontinuities were linked to a change in location
or in the technique of data gathering, it will not be included in the final data
set.

The data for the mean annual temperature came from 34 stations wherein
for the extreme event, a number of stations were removed from the data
set.

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 3.3.3. Data analysis

The data from the remaining stations were analyzed to identify mean
temperature trends, daily maximum and minimum temperature, and
extreme daily events (temperature and precipitation).

3.3.3.1. Mean temperature trends

The observed annual mean of daily temperature data was

arranged to create a time series. National values were collected
by getting the arithmetic mean of the data which was then used
to calculate mean annual temperature of each station. From this,
anomalies were determined by subtracting the mean for the
reference period from the mean temperature from each year. The
five year running mean was illustrated in a graph.

3.3.3.2. Daily maximum and minimum temperatures

The computation for the anomalies for daily maximum and

minimum temperatures were the same such tht mean annual
maximum/minimum temperatures were arranged to create a time
series. The mean annual temperature of the reference period was
used to detect anomalies.

3.3.3.3. Extreme daily events for temperature and precipitation

Determination of trends made use of indices as shown in table 1.

The significance of the trends was computed using Kendall – tau
test. A significant positive trend means an increase in the
frequency of hot days and cold nights. If as presumed there is a

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 warming trend, the hot days will have significant increase and the
cold nights will have significant decrease.

Table 1. Description of the extreme weather event indices used when analyzing the
time series data

4. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

4.1. Evaluation of the performance of the utilized models

In 1978, mean temperatures continually rises and consistently deviated from 1983
which is similar to the global trend of the last 50 years of the 20th century. 1998
was observed to have the greatest deviation from the normal which can be
attributed to the El Nino events, leading to a drought due to lower than average
rainfall from 1997 to 1998. Period 1992-1995 showed a decreasing trend which
can be attributed to the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. The maximum temperature
reached a +0.9°C in reference to the normal. The data has variable movement of
positive and negative value throughout 1951-2010 showing that the rate of
warming is slower in comparison with the overall mean. The minimum
temperature values had positive trend in 1977 and peaked at 1998 with +1.0°C
anomaly. 2005 and 2006 were observed to be the peak warm years of the first 10
years of the 21st century.

Tmean and Tmin are consistently positive and Tmax, although less consistent, signifies
a warming trend. Minimum temperature increases signify that nights are becoming
warmer however this can also be associated to the urbanization of the area and an
event called heat island effect.

1998 has the greatest anomaly which can be attributed to the drought brought upon
by the El Nino event. Although there are 13 number of years identified as having
experienced El Nino events, the only detectable years using the Philippine

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 temperature record were from 1972-1973, 1986-1987, 1997-1998, and 2009-2010.
The large anomaly of the 1998 values can also be attributed to the global maximum
which was considered the maximum of the last century and can be supported using
NASA’s GISS Surface Temperature Analysis.

4.2. Extreme daily events

Evaluation of changes in extreme daily maximum and minimum temperatures

reveals that there is a statistically significant increase in the number of hot days
and a decrease in the number of cold nights. Out of 30 synoptic stations, some
shows that there is a statistically significant increase in the occurrence of hot days
and decrease in cold nights across much of the Philippines during the period 1951–
2010. In fact, none of the stations shows a statistically significant increase in cold
nights throughout the Philippines with only five of the thirty stations showing any
observed decrease. A significant increase in hot days is also found at the station in
Baguio and this was also one of two stations (the other is Malaybalay) located in
an upland area, both of which show large significant trend increases which perhaps
provides an indication that elevation does not play an influential constraining role
in temperature extreme indices.

4.3. Results in a national and regional context

Rainfall trends for both intensity and frequency of extreme events for the whole
of the Philippines based on observed data are in the majority not statistically
significant. However, some stations do show a significant increase in both
intensity and frequency and some of these frequently experience the effects of
tropical cyclones including typhoons. These findings at a national level appear to
be broadly consistent with both previous regional studies for similar temperature
indicators for the Asia-Pacific region and with global studies.

The aim of this study was not to conduct a direct comparison of national level data
with that of Manton et al. (2001). Instead this study uses the same methodology to

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 provide an updated, contemporary insight into the temperature and precipitation
trends within the Philippines, providing a more detailed analysis from a greater
number of stations and presenting the results in a regional and global context. It is
worth noting that other studies discussed use slightly different datasets to those
used in this study and investigate seasonal variations as opposed to long term
trends so direct comparisons are not wholly appropriate but this does provide some
indication of the level of national and sub-national consistency of the results of
this study.

4.4. Conclusion

The study suggested that temperature is warming globally. Based on the observed
data, the global climate is warming above normal variation that expected to see
since the mid-20th century. The increasing temperature trends can become
indicator of the probability of extreme weather events. If the temperature of the
Philippines continuously in upward trend, it could result serious implications for
the economic and social development. Therefore, it suggested that the Philippines
must prepared for a possible additional climate change impact.

The researchers hope that the future study can form an evidence base for a proper
action to address and prepare for unpredictable impacts in order to avoid worst
damage to the economy and the community. This study provides a basis that can
be a reference points for a future analysis and on-going monitoring for climate
changes, temperature trends and precipitation in the Philippines.

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