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Piecewise linear fitting and trend changing points of climate parameters
Author(s) -
Tomé A. R.,
Miranda P. M. A.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2003gl019100
Subject(s) - piecewise linear function , climatology , mathematics , piecewise , climate change , econometrics , statistics , environmental science , meteorology , mathematical analysis , geology , geography , oceanography
Finding an overall linear trend is a common method in scientific studies. It is almost a requirement when one intends to study variability. Nevertheless, when dealing with long climate temporal series, fitting a straight line only seldom has a relevant meaning. This paper proposes and describes a new methodology for finding overall trends, and, simultaneously, for computing a new set of climate parameters: the breakpoints between periods with significantly different trends. The proposed methodology uses a least‐squares approach to compute the best continuous set of straight lines that fit a given time series, subject to a number of constraints on the minimum distance between breakpoints and on the minimum trend change at each breakpoint. The method is tested with three climate time series.