EVALUATION OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS TO THE PRECIPITATION PATTERNS IN THE SELECTED BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA CITIES

Climate change effects are most often presented with ongoing and expected temperature increase and sea level rise, but also stressed is the shift in rainfall patterns, often difficult to distinguish because there is much natural variability in precipitation. Statistical process control presents application of statistical methods and procedures for monitoring and control of the selected process. It aims to evaluate two potential sources of a process variation: natural (common) and assignable (special) causes. Statistical process control was recently used to evaluate climate change/variation, using previous referential period as a benchmark for addressing the present variations (e. g. in temperature or precipitation) as being triggered by natural or special causes. This means that either variation statistically should have been expected or the natural processes “capability” changed and variations are higher than one could expect. This paper analytically compares specific precipitation pattern changes in the three cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina with different annual participation. The comparison is based on the assessment of statistical behaviour of the precipitation data during the periods of 1961-1990 and after 1990. Such comparison allows preliminary conclusions on the studied geographical distribution of specific climate change/variation impacts. The presented results show that climate variations effect the precipitation patterns change, but do not confirm that they are as high as they could not be statistically expected, based on previous precipitation data.