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From time frames to temperature bias in temperature series

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Abstract

The article offers an overview of the time frames used in instrumental series and how to transform them into modern units. In the early instrumental period, time was measured with sundials or mechanical clocks regulated every day with the culmination at noon, making reference to the apparent solar time (AST) and the local meridian. Every day had a slightly different duration, start, and end for the apparent changes of speed of the Sun. When canonical hours were used, hours were computed starting from twilight. In the late eighteenth century, the start was established at midnight. In the mid-nineteenth century, when precise clocks were available, it was possible to adopt an average time, with all days having the same duration, but related to the local meridian. A further step was to unify the time of all cities of a country adopting the time of the capital. Finally, the interregional rails, the telegraph, the telephone, and the international contacts required to unify the different time frames. This lead to the creation of the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and the time zones (TZ). The change from AST to UTC introduced two important time differences: one related to the variability of the apparent solar motion and one related to the longitude of the site. Instrumental records, especially the longest ones, are affected by changes in time frames that may cause bias. In this paper, the time changes of 92 selected European cities when they passed from AST to Western European Time, Central Europe Time, or Eastern Europe Time, are considered, and the departures during the calendar year are calculated. Moreover, the bias in temperature derived from the time frame change has also been evaluated in ten case studies over Europe. This paper will assist historians and climatologists to recognize and correct the time departures that affect meteorological series concerning temperature, barometric pressure, and other variables with daily cycles. This correction is crucial to assess climate changes. Specific aims are as follows: to make a friendly explanation of the methodology to pass from old time frames to UTC; to provide transformation equations to remove the bias for the time difference; to pass from time difference to temperature bias to homogenize early records with modern ones.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to the following: the reviewers for their appreciation and useful suggestions; Dr Valeria Zanini, INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico, Padua, for Fig. 1b (EDU-INAF, CC-BY-NC-3.0-IT, https://edu.inaf.it/news/video/edu-inaf-osservatorio-astronomico-padova/); Dr Alessandra Lenzi and Dr Sabina Bernacchini, Museo Galileo - Institute of the History of Science, Florence for Fig. 1d.

Availability of data and materials

Climatic data in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 are derived from the Integrated Surface Database of NOAA/NCEI (Smith et al. 2011) https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/isd

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Council, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127, Padua, Italy

    Dario Camuffo & Antonio della Valle

  2. National Research Council, Institute of Polar Sciences, Via Torino 155, Mestre, 30172, Venice, Italy

    Francesca Becherini

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  1. Dario Camuffo
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  2. Antonio della Valle
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  3. Francesca Becherini
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Correspondence to Dario Camuffo.

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Camuffo, D., della Valle, A. & Becherini, F. From time frames to temperature bias in temperature series. Climatic Change 165, 38 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03065-5

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