Climatic trends: an investigation for a Calabrian basin (southern Italy)

Over the last 10 years a number of studies of climate have shown that a number of variables, e.g. the air temperature, the chemical composition of the atmosphere, the rainfall and the mean sea level, have been experiencing important changes. Changes in climate, mainly due to human activities, if confirmed and inferred for the coming decades, may also cause relevant changes in biological, physical and socio-economic systems. This paper reports an investigation into the precipitation and temperature trends in the biggest Calabrian basin. The same data set has been used for the investigation of the evolution with time of the most commonly used aridity indexes. The results indicate a predominantly positive trend for maximum temperatures, as well as negative trends for minimum temperatures and rainfall depths, but no generalizations are made.