Figure 3.8: Lincoln versus Christchurch temperature

Text description of figure

Annual average temperatures at Lincoln (black line) show a relatively constant warming trend through the 20th century. Temperatures in the late 1990s are about 0.6-0.8 degrees Celsius higher than those in the early 1920s. A second blue line in the figure shows the differences in annual temperatures between Christchurch Botanical Gardens and Lincoln. There is little trend between 1920 and about 1955, but after that there is a steady increasing trend with Christchurch temperatures rising about one tenth of a degree per decade faster than the outlying rural environment at Lincoln. Note: Lincoln annual mean temperature anomaly (black line), and the difference Christchurch Gardens minus Lincoln (blue line). All anomalies are relative to respective 1961-1990 climatologies.