Climate Change Chart of Hanga Roa, Easter Island, Chile

Overview of climate changes

Changes in rainfall

Mean daily rainfall, rather than monthly totals, had an unweighted difference across calendar months of -0.61 mm/day. This aggregate decrease does not mean rainfall fell in every month: the largest monthly increase occurred in January, with a difference of +0.16 mm/day, whereas the largest monthly decrease was in September, at -1.22 mm/day. These are changes in daily averages for the named months, not changes in accumulated monthly rainfall.

Temperature changes

Averaged across calendar months, the difference in monthly mean temperature is +0.05 °C; this unweighted summary describes the set of monthly means, not a day-weighted annual average or daytime highs. The largest monthly increase was in March, at +0.45 °C, while the largest monthly decrease was in October, at -0.27 °C. These monthly contrasts show that the overall mean difference does not describe the change in every month.

Changes in sunshine duration

For mean daily sunshine duration, the unweighted difference averaged across calendar months was +0.02 hours/day. Monthly differences varied around that small aggregate increase: the largest increase was in August, at +0.35 hours/day, and the largest decrease was in January, at -0.31 hours/day. These comparisons describe monthly averages of daily sunshine hours, not the duration of sunshine on every day.