Abstract Diurnal temperature range (DTR) is an important index for climate because of its statistical relationships to greenhouse gases, urban heat, cloud cover, land use change, and aerosol haze layers. This study examines DTR trends across Zambia for the period 1930–2016 using the latest version of high-resolution monthly data (CRU TS v4.01) from the Climatic Research Unit. Non-parametric trend analyses were extensively employed at different spatial and temporal scales to quantify DTR changes. Taken together, results show a dominant east-west pattern with higher DTR values being observed in the western half of the country. Although there are noticeable differences in the magnitude from one month to the other, this east-west pattern is persistent throughout all the months. It is also found that mean annual DTR is negatively correlated with mean annual cloud cover with a strong and statistically significant coefficient of -0.8 but its correlation with precipitation weakens to -0.5 at the α 0.05. Results from the Mann-Kendall trend test shows marginal increments in DTR during all the seasons and they are all statistically significant at the α 0.05. The observed increments can be attributed to a general decrease in cloud cover over Zambia.

中文翻译：

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在赞比亚观测到的昼夜温差的主要东西向模式

摘要 昼夜温差（DTR）与温室气体、城市热量、云量、土地利用变化和气溶胶雾霾层之间的统计关系是气候的重要指标。本研究使用来自气候研究部门的最新版高分辨率月度数据 (CRU TS v4.01)，研究了 1930 年至 2016 年期间赞比亚的 DTR 趋势。在不同的空间和时间尺度上广泛采用非参数趋势分析来量化 DTR 变化。综上所述，结果显示出占主导​​地位的东西向模式，在该国西半部观察到更高的 DTR 值。尽管从一个月到另一月在震级上存在明显差异，但这种东西向模式在所有月份中都持续存在。还发现年平均 DTR 与年平均云量呈负相关，系数为 -0.8，具有很强的统计显着性，但其与降水的相关性在 α 0.05 处减弱至 -0.5。Mann-Kendall 趋势检验的结果显示所有季节中 DTR 的边际增量，并且它们在 α 0.05 处都具有统计显着性。观察到的增量可归因于赞比亚上空云量的普遍减少。