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Climate Change Assessment for Water Resources Region 03 <br />South Atlantic -Gulf <br />Region. For this area, historical data generally shows mild warming of average annual <br />temperatures in the early part of the 201' century, followed by a few decades of cooling, and is <br />now showing indications of warming. However, though a seasonal breakdown is not presented, <br />the NCA report cites an overall lack of trend in mean annual temperature in the region for the <br />past century. Details on statistical significance are not provided. <br />sa rP� <br />Figure 2.1. Linear trends in surface air temperature (a) and precipitation (b) over the <br />United States, 1950 — 2000. The South Atlantic -Gulf Region is within the black oval <br />(Wang et al., 2009). <br />Grundstein and Dowd (2011) investigated trends in one -day extreme maximum and minimum <br />temperatures across the continental U.S. The study was based on daily temperature data <br />compiled by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) for 187 stations across the country for <br />the period 1949 — 2010. For the South Atlantic -Gulf Region, they found a statistically <br />significant increasing trend in the number of one -day extreme minimum temperatures. <br />However, only in the southern portion of the region (Florida) were significant trends in the <br />number of one -day extreme maximum temperatures identified. This appears to generally agree <br />with the findings of Wang et al. (2009), two years earlier and described above, which indicated <br />a mix of warming versus cooling trends in recent historical temperature data for the region. <br />Schwartz et al. (2013) investigated changes in spring onset for the continental U.S. Their <br />particular focus was on changes in the seasonality of plant growth as dictated by changing <br />temperature regimes. The authors used historical data from over 22,000 stations across the <br />United States, obtained from the NCDC with periods of record extending through 2010. Their <br />findings indicate that for most of the South Atlantic -Gulf Region, spring onset is occurring at <br />USACE Institute for Water Resources 8 January 9, 2015 <br />