Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Temperature Change in Southeast Asia and Australia

Abstract

In this study, we focus on surface temperature variation involving correlation in both time and space in Southeast Asia and Australia from 1973 to 2008. The area comprised 54 regions of 10^o by 10^o grid-boxes in latitudes 35°S to 25°N and longitudes 65°E to 160°E. The data were filtered with a second order autoregressive process to remove autocorrelations between temperature lags. Factor analysis was then used to account for spatial correlation between grid-boxes yielding six contiguous geographic regions. A fit of trend of each region by simple linear model showed that temperature averages in these six regions have increased gradually, ranging from 0.091 to 0.240^oC per decade.

Keywords: Southeast Asia, climate change, time series analysis, spatial correlation, autocorrelations, factor analysis