An analysis of precipitation regime change in Zanjan province

One of the climate change consequences is changing precipitation characteristics. One of the precipitation characteristics is precipitation regime affected by climate change. Precipitation regime is an indication of seasonal- monthly distribution of precipitation. Thus it provides a possibility to compare seasonal and monthly precipitation with each others. Precipitation is the result of physical, spatial and temporal factors interactions that could be investigated by many different indices. This paper applied Seasonal Index (SI) to investigate seasonal distribution of precipitation. This index and its change can represent a lot of information on precipitation regime and its change. In this paper 31 synoptic and climatology stations of Zanjan province have been used during 35 years to investigate the change of precipitation regime. In order to produce precipitation maps and using interpolation technique, six stations out of 29 were chosen from out of the province boundary. At first explorative characteristics of monthly precipitation have been shown graphically and statistically. Then temporal change, seasonal index and long-term changes have been estimated. Seasonal index manifests two regime categories. The first one is seasonal regime with a short dry season that covers 79.4% of the province. The other is completely seasonal regime that covers 20.6% of the province area. In both regimes the trend of precipitation is decreasing during the under investigated period. At the first regime region decreasing trend of Seasonal Index is about 0.1 to 0.3 and at the second one maximum decrease is 0.2. This change of behavior in regime is a proof of partly temporal concentration of the precipitation. Therefore it seems that the increasing of precipitation during July, November and December isnt significant statistically, as the standard statistical tests proof it. The results of this paper show a decreasing of local processes especially in spring and June-September.