Climate Change Chart of Kauai (Hawaii), USA

Overview of climate changes

Temperature changes

Averaged across calendar months, monthly mean temperature shows a difference of +0.42 °C between the reference periods; this is an unweighted summary of monthly means, not a day-weighted annual average or a measure of daytime highs. The monthly changes were not uniform: December had the largest increase, at +0.64 °C, while June had the largest decrease, a difference of -0.05 °C. These are the respective monthly extremes, rather than a description of every month.

Changes in rainfall

Mean daily rainfall, rather than monthly rainfall totals, averaged across calendar months shows a difference of +1.21 mm/day between the periods. Month-level changes varied around that summary: June recorded the largest increase, with a difference of +2.16 mm/day, whereas January recorded the largest decrease, a difference of -0.41 mm/day. These extremes identify the strongest monthly shifts in opposite directions; they do not imply that daily rainfall changed in the same way on every day or that all months followed either pattern.

Changes in sunshine duration

Mean daily sunshine duration averaged across calendar months shows a difference of -0.25 hours/day between the earlier and more recent reference periods. This is an unweighted summary of the calendar-month means, not a day-weighted annual figure. The monthly pattern differed: January had the largest increase, at +0.09 hours/day, while March had the largest decrease, a difference of -0.61 hours/day. Those monthly extremes help qualify the overall mean: the aggregate change does not describe every month, and the sunshine measure is a daily average rather than a total over a month.