COMPARATIVE FREQUENCY ANALYSIS OF FROST HAZARD IN EASTERN CARPATHIANS BASINS

11th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM2011, www.sgem.org, SGEM2011 Conference Proceedings/ ISSN 1314-2704, June 20-25, 2011, Vol. 2, 605-612 pp

ABSTRACT

With climate change in recent years, tourists, whether foreign or domestic would prefer
to assess the danger associated to some locations they visit. In this paper the analysis of
temperature was preferred, because it represents the most accessible type of data for
long periods, and for statistical analysis. The studied region, the Eastern Carpathians is
considered as one of the coldest part of Romania, but also a touristically attractive
region. We selected for analysis three major basins (Giurgeu, Ciuc, Intorsura Buzaului)
and we also considered Toaca Peak in Ceahlau Mountains. Due to the fact that the
spatial distribution of metrological stations is sparse in this part of Romania, we could
consider only one station from every basin. This situation doesn’t allow to make
temperature interpolations, but can offer the possibility to have a comparison of the
probabilistic temporal evolution of the phenomenon. In our study we use several
descriptive statistic methods for characterizing the studied region based on temperature
values, but we also made the frequency analysis to determine the most suitable
distribution law that adjust the appearance of annual extreme negative temperatures
based on which we determined the return periods for them. The resulted probabilistic
values were correlated with various geomorphometric values of the basins taking
account the fact that all basins are in north-south direction so the dominant wind
direction is from west for them, resulting a multiple regression formulae to estimate the
frost hazard for similar situation.

Keywords: Eastern Carpathian basins, extreme negative temperature, frost risk, frequency analysis, multiple regression