Observed trends in frost and hours of cold in Majorca

Abstract

The observed trends in some cold indices in the island of Majorca are analysed using the available series of the daily minimum temperatures of the Majorca Airport (1972–2008), supplemented with the inspection of eight more climatological stations of the island covering at least 30 simultaneous years. The analysis yields a statistically significant trend to a rise of about 0.6 °C per decade for the ensemble of the stations. There is also a clear shortening of the season with days with T below 0 °C or 7°C, but the yearly minima or the dates of the first and last occurrence of these values do not show so well-defined tendencies. A rise in night-time cloud cover could be related to such behaviour.