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Over the last decades, different machine learning techniques have been used to detect climate change patterns, mostly using data from measuring stations located in different parts of the world. Some previous studies focus on temperature as primary variable of study, though there have been other works focused on precipitation or even wind speed as objective variable. In this paper, we use the self-organized Second Order Data Coupled Clustering (SODCC) algorithm to carry out a spatio-temporal analysis of temperature patterns in Europe. By applying the SODCC we identify three different regimes of spatio-temporal correlations based on their geographical extent: small, medium, and large-scale regimes. Based on these regimes, it is possible to detect a change in the spatio-temporal trend of air temperature, reflecting a shift in the extent of the correlations in stations in the Iberian Peninsula and Southern France. We also identify an oscillating spatio-temporal trend in the Western Asia region and a stable medium-scale regime affecting the British Isles. These results are found to be consistent with previous studies in climate change. The patterns obtained with the SODCC algorithm may represent a signal of climate change to be taken into account, and so the SODCC could be used as detection method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The total glacial area of the Cordillera Blanca, Peru, has shrunk by more than 30% in the period of 1930 to the present with a marked glacier retreat also in the recent decades. The aim of this paper is to assess local air temperature and precipitation changes in the Cordillera Blanca and to discuss how these variables could have affected the observed glacier retreat between the 1980s and present. A unique data set from a large number of stations in the region of the Cordillera Blanca shows that after a strong air temperature rise of about 0.31°C per decade between 1969 and 1998, a slowdown in the warming to about 0.13°C per decade occurred for the 30years from 1983 to 2012. Additionally, based on data from a long-term meteorological station, it was found that the freezing line altitude during precipitation days has probably not increased significantly in the last 30years. We documented a cooling trend for maximum daily air temperatures and an increase in precipitation of about 60mm/decade since the early 1980s. The strong increase in precipitation in the last 30years probably did not balance the increase of temperature before the 1980s. It is suggested that recent changes in temperature and precipitation alone may not explain the glacial recession within the thirty years from the early 1980s to 2012. Glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca may be still reacting to the positive air temperature rise before 1980. Especially small and low-lying glaciers are characterised by a serious imbalance and may disappear in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]