Climatic variation and trends in the boreal forest region of Western Canada

Long-term climatic trends were studied for the boreal forest region of western Canada. Mean monthly and annual temperature and precipitation data obtained between 1872 and 1981 were analyzed for the three subregions (forestgrassland, predominantly forest, and forest-tundra). Highly significant differences (P < 0.01) were detected in the mean monthly temperature among the subregions for each month, and similar differences were found for most of the months for precipitation. Long-term records showed statistically highly significant slightly increasing temperature and precipitation trends for the economically important predominantly forest subregion.