Climate change in Kazakhstan during the past 70 years

The changes of the air temperature and the precipitation in the whole territory of Kazakhstan were studied for the period from 1941 to 2011. The mean annual air temperature and the mean annual precipitation were used as the main indicators of the regional climate and the seasonal changes were analyzed for further characterizing the variation in the air temperature and precipitation. The abnormality index K was adopted for assessing the changing trends of the climate extremes. Our results sufficiently demonstrated increasing trends of the air temperature during the studied period (1941-2011) in Kazakhstan for all seasons. A weak decreasing trend of the annual precipitation was also detected. Accompanying the observed warming were: a dramatic increase in the daily temperature maximum, a significant increase in the number of days with the air temperature higher than 35 C, and a decreasing trend of days with the minimum daily temperature below 0C. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.