Isaac Mugume, Shen Shuanghe, Tao Sulin and Godfrey Mujuni
Although many studies carried out have shown evidence of regional temperature variability along with global climate changes, it is important to compare the trends over different regions considering urbanization and levels of development. The study investigated temperature variability over urban and desert areas of Northern China using Mann-Kendall trend test, ranking temperatures and regression analysis for the data from 20 stations. The results show decreasing diurnal temperature range (DTR) over both deserts and cities in spring but decreasing (increasing) for cities (deserts) in summer (cities: -0.140°C/decade and deserts: 0.068°C/decade). The DTR over cities is decreasing faster in spring over deserts (cities: -0.307°C/decade, desert: 0.023°C/decade). The maximum temperature over desert areas is increasing at a higher rate (annual: 0.510°C/decade, spring: 0.540°C/decade and summer: 0.550°C/decade) than over cities (annual: 0.325°C/decade, spring: 0.252°C/decade and summer: 0.389°C/ decade). The high temperature days and high temperature extremes for both areas are increasing while the frost days and low temperature extremes for both areas are decreasing. The spring minimum temperatures are also increasing over both areas and increasing at a higher rate over deserts (0.536°C/decade) than over cities (0.529°C/ decade).