Recent frequency component changes in interannual climate variability

Abstract

The potential impact of climate change on the variability structure of climate has been investigated predominately through changes to extreme event frequency or the shape of the daily frequency distribution. Recent change to interannual climate variability has received less attention. Here we report that the interannual variability of temperature and precipitation has marginally decreased since 1970. However, within this marginal decrease the inter-decadal component of interannual variability has decreased for both temperature and precipitation. The temperature results are consistent across urban and rural stations indicating that they are not due to any urbanisation effect. Copyright 2006 b..