Water vapor pressure trends in south and southwest Iran

Abstract

Recognitionanddetectionofclimaticparameters inhave animportant role inclimate change monitoring. In this study, the analysis of oneofthe most importantparameters, water vapor pressure (WVP), was investigated. For this purpose, two non-parametric techniques, Mann-Kendall and Sen's Slope Estimator, were used to analyze the WVP trend and to determine the magnitude of the trends, respectively. To analyze these tests, ground station observations [10 stations for period of 44 years (1967-2010)] and gridded data [pixels with the dimension of 9 × 9 km over a 30-year period (1981-2010)] in South and SouthwestofIran were used. By programming in MATLAB software, the monthly, seasonal and annual WVP time series were extracted and MK and Sen's slope estimator tests were done. The results of monthly MK test on ground station observations showed that the significant downward trends are more considerable than significant upward trends. It also showed that the WVP highest frequency was more in warm months, April to September and the highest frequency of significant trends slope was in February and May. The spatial distribution of MK test of monthly gridded WVP time series showed that the upward trends were detected mostly in western zone and near the Persian Gulf in August. On the other hand, the downward trends through months. The maximum and minimum values of positive trends slope occurred in warm months and cold months, respectively. The analysis of the MK test of the annual WVP time series indicated the upward significant trends in the southeast and southwest zones of study area.