Climate Change Chart of Tignes, France

Overview of climate changes

Changes in snowfall

Mean daily snowfall, averaged without weighting across calendar-month means, had a difference of +5.04 mm/day compared with the earlier reference period. This aggregate does not indicate an equal change in every month, and the values describe daily means rather than monthly snowfall totals. The largest monthly increase occurred in March, with a difference of +17.58 mm/day. The largest decrease was in June, a difference of -3.28 mm/day; these month-specific daily means show that changes were not uniform across the calendar.

Temperature changes

Averaged across calendar months, monthly mean temperature shows a difference of +2.40 °C compared with the earlier reference period. This is an unweighted mean of monthly means, not a day-weighted annual average, and it does not imply that every month warmed by the same amount. The largest monthly increase was in December, with a difference of +6.41 °C. This monthly mean describes the average temperature for that month, not its daytime maximum.

Changes in sunshine duration

Averaged across calendar months, mean daily sunshine duration had a difference of -0.36 hours/day. This unweighted mean of monthly means summarizes the comparison across the calendar and does not mean that sunshine duration decreased in every month. The largest monthly decrease was in March, with a difference of -0.93 hours/day; by contrast, June recorded the largest increase, a difference of +0.40 hours/day. Both figures describe mean daily sunshine hours for their respective months.

Changes in rainfall

The unweighted mean of mean daily rainfall across calendar months had a difference of +0.37 mm/day compared with the earlier reference period. These are daily amounts averaged by month, not monthly rainfall totals, and the overall mean does not describe every month's change. Among the supplied monthly extremes, October had the largest increase, a difference of +1.14 mm/day, while November had the largest decrease, a difference of -0.08 mm/day. These shifts refer to mean daily rainfall in those months, rather than accumulated monthly totals.