Changes in temperature and precipitation extremes over the Indo‐Pacific region from 1971 to 2005

Abstract Up‐to‐date regional and local assessments of changing climate extremes are important to allow countries to make informed decisions on mitigation and adaptation strategies, and to put these changes into a global context. A workshop for countries from the Indo‐Pacific region has brought together daily observations from 13 countries for an analysis of climate extremes between 1971 and 2005. This paper makes use of the workshop outcomes and post‐workshop analyses to build on previous work in Southeast Asia to update the assessment of changing climate extremes using newly available station data. We utilise a consistent and widely tested methodology to allow a direct comparison of the results with those from other parts of the world. The relationship of inter‐annual variability in the climate extremes indices with sea surface temperature (SST) patterns has been investigated with a focus on the influence of the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation phenomenon. The results support findings from elsewhere around the globe that warm extremes, particularly at night, are increasing and cold extremes are decreasing. Trends in precipitation extremes are less spatially consistent across the region. © Royal Meteorological Society and Crown Copyright 2010.