Climate Change Chart of Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic

Overview of climate changes

Temperature changes

Averaged across calendar months, monthly mean temperature shows a difference of +1.40 °C compared with the earlier reference period; this is an unweighted mean of the monthly means, not a day-weighted annual average or a measure of daytime maximum temperatures. The largest monthly increase was in March, with a difference of +2.17 °C. That identifies the strongest increase among the monthly changes, not a uniform shift in every month.

Changes in rainfall

Mean daily rainfall, rather than monthly rainfall totals, had an unweighted across-calendar-month mean difference of +0.14 mm/day in the more recent period. This summarizes the monthly means and does not imply that rainfall increased in every month. The largest monthly increase occurred in November, at a difference of +0.54 mm/day; this highlights one monthly change rather than a general pattern across all months.

Changes in sunshine duration

Mean daily sunshine duration averaged across calendar months had a difference of -0.09 hours/day compared with the earlier period. This is an unweighted mean of monthly means, not a day-weighted annual figure, and it does not describe every month individually. The largest monthly decrease was in February, with a difference of -0.35 hours/day, while December recorded the largest increase, at +0.08 hours/day. These contrasting monthly changes show why the overall mean should not be read as the change in each part of the year.

Changes in snowfall

Mean daily snowfall averaged across calendar months had a difference of +0.02 mm/day; this is an unweighted summary of monthly means, not a day-weighted annual amount or a monthly total. The largest monthly increase occurred in January, with a difference of +0.35 mm/day, whereas the largest decrease was in February, at -0.38 mm/day. The small overall mean difference does not mean that monthly changes were the same, nor does it indicate an absence of recorded snowfall.