Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net 1680-7367 1680-7375 8 2 2008 10.5194/acpd-8-7051-2008 http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/7051/2008/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/7051/2008/acpd-8-7051-2008.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/7051/2008/acpd-8-7051-2008.pdf 7051 7084 2008-04-09 Diurnal temperature range over Europe between 1950 and 2005 K. Makowski makowski@env.ethz.ch M. Wild A. Ohmura Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland It has been widely accepted that diurnal temperature range (DTR) decreased on a global scale during the second half of the twentieth century. Here we show however, that the long-term trend of annual DTR has reversed from a decrease to an increase during the 1970s in Western Europe and during the 1980s in Eastern Europe. The analysis is based on the high-quality dataset of the European Climate Assessment and Dataset Project, from which we selected approximately 200 stations, covering the area from Iceland to Algeria and from Turkey to Russia for 1950 to 2005. We investigate national and regional annual means as well as the pan-European mean with respect to trends and reversal periods. 17 of the 24 investigated regions including the pan-European mean show a statistical significant increase since 1990 at the latest. Of the remaining 7 regions, 2 show a non-significant increase, 3 a significant decrease and the remaining 2 no significant trend. The long-term change in DTR is governed by both surface shortwave and longwave radiation, the former of which has undergone a change from dimming to brightening. 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