%0 Journal Article
%T Evaluation of ERA-Interim Air Temperature Data over the Qilian Mountains of China
%A Chen
%A Xingwei
%A Deng
%A Haijun
%A Gao
%A Jianyun
%A Gao
%A Lu
%A Ma
%A Miaomiao
%A Wei
%A Jianhui
%A Zhao
%A Peng
%J -
%D 2020
%R https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/7353482
%X In this study, 2 m air temperature data from 24 meteorological stations in the Qilian Mountains (QLM) are examined to evaluate ERA-Interim reanalysis temperature data derived from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) for the period of 1979¨C2017. ERA-Interim generally captures the monthly, seasonal, and annual variation very well. High daily correlations ranging from 0.956 to 0.996 indicate that ERA-Interim captures the daily temperature observations very well. However, an average root-mean-square error (RMSE) of ¡À2.7¡ãC of all stations reveals that ERA-Interim should not be directly applied at individual sites. The biases are mainly attributed to the altitude differences between ERA-Interim grid points and stations. The positive trend (0.457¡ãC/decade) is significant over the Qilian Mountains based on the 1979¨C2017 observations. ERA-Interim captures the warming trend very well with an increase rate of 0.384¡ãC/decade. The observations and ERA-Interim both show the largest positive trends in summer with the values of 0.552¡ãC/decade and 0.481¡ãC/decade, respectively. We conclude that in general ERA-Interim captures the trend very well for observed 2 m air temperatures and ERA-Interim is generally reliable for climate change research over the Qilian Mountains
%U https://www.hindawi.com/journals/amete/2020/7353482/