Climate Change Chart of Tamarind, Costa Rica

Overview of climate changes

Temperature changes

Averaged across calendar months, monthly mean temperature shows a difference of +0.86 °C compared with the earlier reference period; this is an unweighted average of monthly means, not a day-weighted annual average or a measure of daytime highs. The largest monthly increase was in January, with a difference of +1.46 °C. That identifies the strongest increase among the supplied monthly comparisons, rather than describing every month.

Changes in rainfall

Mean daily rainfall, rather than monthly rainfall totals, had an average difference of +0.19 mm/day across calendar months in the more recent period. This unweighted mean summarizes the monthly comparisons and does not imply the same change in each month. The largest monthly increase was recorded in October, where mean daily rainfall had a difference of +3.17 mm/day. In contrast, July had the largest monthly decrease, with a difference of -2.25 mm/day in mean daily rainfall. These monthly extremes show that the direction of change was not uniform across the calendar.

Changes in sunshine duration

Mean daily sunshine duration averaged across calendar months had a difference of +0.18 hours/day compared with the earlier reference period. This is an unweighted summary of monthly means, not a day-weighted annual figure. The largest monthly increase in mean daily sunshine was in September, with a difference of +0.65 hours/day. The largest monthly decrease occurred in April, where mean daily sunshine had a difference of -0.23 hours/day. The overall mean therefore should not be read as a change applying equally to every month.