MATHEMATICAL ASPECTS OF THE IMPACT

OF URBAN GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

ON GLOBAL WARMING

By
Muhammad Arif Hussain

Thesis presented in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

at the Department of Mathematical Sciences

Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology,
Karachi campus, (Pakistan)
2006

To my parents

CERTIFICATE

We accept the thesis as conforming to the required standard.

1. Supervisor:

2. External Examiner:

CERTIFICATE

Certified that the candidate has completed the thesis under my supervision

Dr. Muhammad Rashid Kamal Ansari

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Page #
viii

Abstract

ix

Introduction
1.1

Problem of assessing the impact of global heat-balance

change on global and regional climate

1.2

Green house emissions from urban traffic flow as a factor

in the contemporary global heat-balance

1.3

Mathematical underpinnings

1.4

Procedural steps behind the approach taken here

Developing an Imputation Scheme for the Missing Data 19

Problem for Urban Traffic-Related Greenhouse Gas Emissions
2.1

Probabilistic structure of fluctuations of atmospheric

greenhouse gas emissions arising from urban traffic system

2.1.1

Assessing the shape and related features of atmospheric

greenhouse gas concentration distributions

2.1.2

Determining distribution structure via tests for normality

2.2

Developing an imputation scheme for the missing data

2.2.1

Constructing the time series of greenhouse gas

concentrations

2.2.2

Applying bootstrap resampling Monte Carlo simulation

2.2.2.1 Random number generator and statistical tests

2.2.2.2 Statistical testing
2.2.3

Checking the constructed data model for homogeneity in

traffic density

2.3

An extension of constructed data model of annual mean

concentration of urban traffic-related greenhouse gases

2.3.1

Problem of computing the long-term trend of greenhouse

gas concentration
2.4

Relationship between greenhouse gas concentration due

to urban traffic volume and city population using Ridge
Regression

Urban Greenhouse Gas Concentration and Local

46

Temperature Fluctuations
3.1

The surface temperature fluctuation mechanism

3.2

Quantifying contribution of megacity traffic congestion

to urban greenhouse gas concentration due to urban traffic

3.2.1 Statistical distributions of city traffic congestions

3.2.2

Relationship between delay and extra fuel consumption

3.3

An ansatz to model the evolution of local atmospheric

temperature fluctuations

Local and Global Temperature Fluctuation Dynamics

62

and Their Mutual Relationship

4.1

Mechanisms of climate variability and uncertainties of

methods

4.1.2. Global and local temperature series

4.2

Criteria for developing a model in order to describe a

physical system

4.2.1 Time series as a stochastic process

4.2.2 Measures of long range dependence with reference to
temperature data and hurst exponent
4.2.3 Global warming as martingales and Markov processes
4.2.3.1 Markov process
4.3

Problem of interconnection between local and global

warming

4.3.1

Distributive and correlation properties of local and global

temperature fluctuations

4.3.2

Global and local warming as Markov processes

4.3.3

Bayesian regression analysis of local and global

temperatures

Summary and Conclusions

5.1

Recapitulation of results

5.2

Outlook flowing from the work undertaken here

5.3

Open questions

87

References

97

Appendix I

125

Appendix II

145

Appendix III

149

Appendix IV

150

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to gratefully acknowledge my deep indebtedness to my

supervisor Professor Muhammad Rashid Kamal Ansari who,
besides being a guide from A to Z of the work reported here,
taught me the fascination of space and environmental physics and
educated me to do things in terms of current ethics of mathematics
and contemporary mood of science.
I would like to extend my thanks to the members of our
research group, in particular Dr. Jawaid Qumar, Dr. M. Ayub Khan
YousufZai, Dr. Jawed Iqbal, Dr. M. Rafiq Khan, Dr. M. Saleem,
Mr. Mushtaq Ahmad, Mr Ahmad Hassan, Mr. Jawwad, Mr. Bari
Ahmad, Mr. Haroon Rashid, Mr. Aamir Siddiqui, and Ms. Asifa
Tahir, for their many pointed questions, helpful comments during
seminars, and many discussions.
I take this opportunity to thank the Faculty and the Visiting
Faculty from institutions other than the Federal Urdu University
and abroad, especially Dr. Tehsin Rahim and Dr. Suhail F Zaki for
their constant moral support and their many invaluable comments
and discussions.
Finally, I must thank my life partner Najma Perveen who
never minded my long stays away from home at the University,
often extending to late nights, and who always evinced a happy
sense of our joint involvement in the completion of this research.
MAH

ABSTRACT
It is well known that the natural earths energy balance is
influenced by human-induced changes of radiation balance,
especially the concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Therefore, it needs for developing reliable models to gauge,
analyse, and monitor the level of greenhouse gas emissions,
especially for dense mega-city populations. Focusing on the
Karachi Region as a case study, this thesis formulates an
imputation scheme for missing data of greenhouse gases from
traffic flow.

This work also identifies useful parameters of distributions

determined by local greenhouse data, performs EDA using
classical and modern techniques for modeling the data, discusses
the impact of greenhouse gases on local temperature fluctuation.
To do bootstrapping of greenhouse data, a new kind of hybrid
random number generator is proposed which gives satisfactory
results for smaller number of bootstrap samples. Finally, it finds
the interrelationship between local and global temperature
fluctuations after doing analysis on the dynamics of local and
global warming evolution processes.

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1

Problem of assessing the impact of global heat-balance change

on global and regional climate

Does the contemporary tier in the hierarchy of civilizations rival the grand
natural agents of global change like the movements of continents, volcanic
eruptions, asteroid impacts, ice ages, and the varying sun? We can identify
several subsystems within our planet, which are worth special
investigation: the interior of the earth and its crust, its surface, and its
atmosphere. The last two systems are particularly interesting in that they
contain the biosphere, the life-supporting system which includes the water
cycle and other similar cycles and in which the human society is
embedded.
Now how fast has the biosphere changed in the recent past? In the
global climate record, the period 1979-97 is one of the periods of greatest
warming during the past 150 years and is the warmest period on record
[103, 157]. Moreover, the global average surface temperature has
increased by about 0.6C over the twentieth century and many areas have
experienced significant warming during the last 50 years [50].

Again, how fast could the ecosystem of our earth change in the
near future? A four-year study completed by ICSI (International
Commission on Snow and Ice) predicts that all the glaciers in the central
and eastern Himalayas could disappear by the year 2035 due to global
warming (GW) [95]. According to a report by Munich Re a leading
German reinsurance company that monitors the costs of large-scale
disasters emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (cf. Section 1.2)
B

could cause more frequent tropical cyclones, flooding due to rising sea
levels, and damage to food and water supplies. By 2050, the company
calculates that the worldwide cost of these disasters could top $300 billion
annually [53, 164]. Clearly, possible changes to climate, such as those in
temperature, rainfall, and seasonality, concomitant with a planetary
imbalance on scales just indicated could have significant implications for
the local environment affecting factors that influence our way of life and
the economy. [4, 185]
Unfortunately, there are large uncertainties in the climate forecast,
associated with consequences of a wide variety of physical processes.
Clearly, the forecast of global and regional climate changes depends on a
thorough understanding of the factors that change the global heat balance
and thus influence the climate. One such major factor is that of solar
modulation [107]. The temperature variations in the high-altitude
atmosphere resulting from the switch-over of the sun from high solar
activity period to diminished solar activity times and vice versa produce a

cycle of decade-long changes in stratospheric winds. This, in turn, could

produce weather changes, by some as-yet-unknown mechanism, in the
lower atmosphere, the region where the climate originates [10, 11].
Moreover, historical record and observations of other variable stars and
the analysis of the relationship between the length of the sunspot cycle and
global surface temperatures [34, 52] indicate that pronounced fluctuation
in the solar output in the future may occur. This suggests that the solar
modulation should not be excluded if we want to detect and assess the
future effects of industrial / urban activity on the global temperature
record and our fragile environment [106].
However, for the sake of argument, one may reject the possibility
of the occurrence of events like pronounced fluctuation in the solar output
in the foreseeable future. One may assume, on the contrary, that the
climate's temperature is controlled, among other factors, by the sulfate
aerosols [114, 130, 219] emitted into the atmosphere by urban trafficgenerated pollution, industry, and naturally occurring volcanoes. Even
then, if invisible pollutants are continually dumped into the atmosphere at
the present rate, unnatural GW could itself become important soon. The
signature of the latter must eventually break through the temperature
record if it hasn't already, making the terrestrial weather system quite
energetic [120]. Thus, although the uncertainties in future forecast of
global warming are great, a significant overall warming of the atmosphere,
surface, and the bottom of earth masses (like thermafrost under

mountains) due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases ought to

occur sometime in the current century.
As we have just seen, it is important to examine the extent to
which aerosol forcing through direct and indirect effects counteracts
greenhouse-gas forcing (cf. Section 1.2 here) on regional and global
climate. However, while uncertainties in forcings by changes in the
atmospheric aerosol and in clouds are much larger, the uncertainties in the
global mean greenhouse-gas forcing are not negligible ( 15%) [33]. In
fact, the GW phenomenon is not yet fully understood despite the fact that
it is receiving increasing attention and scientific scrutiny. A significant
fraction of research effort is directed towards physico-chemical processes
giving rise to various species of atmospheric pollutants and their chemical
and physical properties [29, 80, 85, 137, 162, 197]. Clearly, the physics
underlying the GW phenomenon is no less important than the involved
chemistry. Another large amount of current research is devoted to
simulation modelling of climate change and forecasting the effects of
increased CO2 emissions on the models under varying physical situations
B

[15-16, 19-20, 72-74, 76-77, 122, 143-145, 179]. However, most of these
approaches, which seem to have a similar core [78], face the criticism that
the human induced greenhouse issue has been exaggerated and that current
scientific evidence is without substance as it is generally based on
computer models [37-38, 55, 169, 195]. Clearly, what this really suggests
is the importance of the basic problem of systematic modelling of the GW

phenomenon

as

physico-mathematical

process

rather

than

substantiation of the debate for or against the phenomenon. Thus the

following section looks into the basic physical aspects of the underlying
the GW process.

1.2

Greenhouse emissions from Urban Traffic Flow as a factor

in the contemporary global heat-balance

The terrestrial atmosphere comprises a mixture of gases including N2 , O2 ,

B

and H2O (in the form of water vapor). Small quantities of CO2, CH4, and a
B

number of other trace gases are also present. Again, sunlight penetrating
its atmosphere warms the surface of the earth. Thus sunlight bouncing off
the land masses and oceans infrared radiation released into the
atmosphere. This balances the incoming solar energy. Moreover, water
vapor, CO2, and some of the other trace gases can absorb part of this
B

radiation which allows it to warm the lower atmosphere and the remainder
escapes to the outer space. What is called the greenhouse effect is this
absorption of infrared radiation. This effect keeps the surface of our planet
warm enough to sustain us. Without heat-trapping greenhouse gases, the
earths surface would have an average temperature of 18C rather than
the current average of 15C [99].
Atmospheric trace gases that are important agents in keeping the
earth warm are known as greenhouse gases. About three-quarters of the
resulting natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor. The next most

significant greenhouse gas happens to be CO2. The industrial revolution,

B

the expansion of agriculture, and the enhancement of burning of fossil

fuels apparently quite importantly, in the form traffic fuel consumption
some 200 years ago appear to have been both a boon as well as a bane
for the terrestrial life. Since this time man has been pumping additional
CO2 into the atmosphere he inhabits. Today, the concentration of CO2 is
B

approximately 28% larger than that in the 18th century [196]. Levels of
P

other greenhouse gases, such as CH4, have also increased because of

B

anthropogenic activities.
In addition to CO2, gases like CH4, N2O, CFCs, and O3 also play
B

an important role in limiting the transmission of infrared radiation from

the surface of the earth to space. Together with water, both in its
condensed and vapor phases, they represent the dominant contributions to
the contemporary greenhouse [121]. Indeed, higher concentrations of
greenhouse gases in the earths atmosphere should obviously lead to
increased trapping of infrared radiation. In particular, the lower
atmosphere is likely to warm and, in turn, weather and climate likely to
change. Moreover, the changes are expected to add to the natural
greenhouse effect, thereby producing an enhanced greenhouse effect. It
is this enhanced greenhouse effect, which is often referred to as climate
change or global warming. One also often speaks of greenhouse-gas
forcing on regional and global climate, meaning extremely imposed
changes in the atmosphere measured in watts per square meter (Wm2).
P

What we have just considered is a delineation of anthropogenic

emissions from the natural such process. But how about the possible
causes of these anthropogenic emissions? The GW phenomenon appears
to be naturally related to so many processes governing atmospheric
physics e.g. the budget of global temperature of the atmosphere earth
system, climatological oscillations, global water cycle, etc. [6]. In
particular, the global temperature budget problem is itself a myriad-sided
issue. For instance, what are the odds that the local temperature pattern
influences the global temperature pattern and vice versa? If so, what is the
extent of such an influence? What kind of physical processes can explain
the changing pattern of local temperature? Does combustion taking place
in megacities in the form of domestic activity, commercial activity,
aircrafts, etc. constitute a significant source of urban greenhouse gas
concentration? In comparison with the industrial activity, how significant
is the contribution of this traffic greenhouse gas concentration to the local
atmospheric change? What are the implications of such a concentration for
local temperature pattern? Can we predict the level of influence of traffic
congestion on the local atmosphere? What is the role of traffic extra fuel
consumption as a source of greenhouse gas concentration and thus local
temperature build-up? What is the part played by factors like ever swelling
urban population, traffic volume, poorly maintained traffic system, bad
road conditions, high rises, etc. on the greenhouse gas concentration level
and thereby local temperature variability? Thus the problem reduces to the

question of understanding present risks to terrestrial ecology from

urbanization and local meteorological degradation, e.g. reduction in air
velocity and increase of temperature compared with suburban temperature
because of ever multiplying high rises, etc. [12, 43].
Now, although the industries and power plants are believed to be
major sources of green house gases globally, in urban areas their
contribution to atmospheric pollution is low as compared to road transport
[3]. Industries mainly add to water and soil pollution in urban areas.
Specifically, the contribution of commercial and industrial activities to
atmospheric pollution is nearly 10% to 17% in urban areas [14, 35, 217].
In contrast, globally road transport accounts for nearly 27% of world
energy consumption and is a major factor in global warming [201].
Moreover, the vehicle population could increase by anything from 60%
to 120% by 2025 and 140% to 600% by 2100 [202]. In particular, the
current annual percentage growth in traffic volume is highest in
Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and some central and eastern
European countries [204]. As an immediate consequence of such a
scenario, in megacities all over the world nearly 60% of atmospheric
pollution is attributed to road transport [165]. We thus see that, for
phenomena and physical processes related to greenhouse warming, the
factor of traffic-related atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration is no
less natural and governing in character than those of the contributions
from industry, deforestation, etc.

Again, the most air-polluted cities in the world are located in Asia.
Thus, in the megacities of the region where population densities are
highest, vehicular emissions tend to be a more significant determinant of
air quality than industrial emissions. For instance, according to some
estimates, it has been reported that the contribution of carbon monoxide,
hydrocarbon, and nitrogen oxide emissions by automobiles in the city of
Shanghai has stood at 75, 93, and 44 percent, respectively [127]. In case of
the Karachi Region, the road transport related pollution is 90% [218], and
so on. As such, Asian countries like China, India, Indonesia, Philippines
and Vietnam are working on technical options for mitigating
environmental emissions from the urban transport system [48, 173].
However, there does not seem to exist any work on Pakistan so far.
Moreover, Pakistan happens to be one of the countries with the highest
birth-rate and so the traffic-related atmospheric pollution can be expected
to be fast-multiplying in such countries.
To sum up, the problem of modelling local traffic-related
atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration and related local temperature
fluctuations, on the one hand, and understanding the possible bearing of
the latter on the global temperature variability, on the other, emerges as a
distinct area of inquiry in its own right. The present thesis, thus, attempts
at modelling the variations in temperature on local scales from trafficrelated greenhouse gas concentration and an investigation of the
possibility of its relation to global heating, building on the main

atmospheric pollution data of Karachi [8, 18] as a model of local urban

traffic emissions. Evidently, the potential implications of the dynamics of
the local temperature fluctuation are far-reaching for any local region,
particularly in combination with other global and regional impacts such as
population and development pressure. Indeed, a formulation and analysis
of the GW problem on the lines just indicated is useful not only
scientifically but also from the angle of the first steps to achieving risk
assessment in any specific region / locality from the viewpoint of urban
planning, health, agriculture, water resources, environment, ecology,
biodiversity, etc.

1.3

Mathematical underpinnings

Unfortunately, there are snags in the way of model construction of natural

or physical phenomena, the foremost as also quite frequent of these even
today being the so-called missing data problem resulting from poor
documentation and / or non-availability of appropriate data. And it need
not be reiterated that it is hard to discern the empirical character of
science, as distinct from its mathematical structure, without an analysis of
the relevant data. Data models necessarily occupy the foremost position in
modelling and understanding of physical phenomena. The prime example
of this is Keplers work on planetary dynamics, from which the entirety of
contemporary science happens to originate. Also, as is borne out by
reports like that of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change),

10

for a range of social and physical reasons the missing data problem is
particularly acute for regions in the Middle East and Arid Asia region,
including Karachi Region [205]. Thus the poor documentation etc.
necessitates a time series construction of greenhouse gas concentration
due to urban traffic before proceeding to jobs like modelling local and
global temperature fluctuation.
Once a data model of urban traffic-related atmospheric greenhouse
gas concentration, verified for adequacy checks, is available, several
useful things could be investigated. For instance, one could construct a
mathematical model of greenhouse gas concentration as dependent on
urban traffic volume and population. One may also build a model of traffic
congestion versus fuel consumption, and fuel consumption versus
concentration. The emerging equations can serve as new indicators of
sources of urban greenhouse gas concentration, in addition to domestic,
commercial, industrial, and other possible sources. More importantly, the
constructed data model can be employed to obtain an equation for local
temperature in terms of local atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration.
With a time series at hand, the question of its analysis is the next
logical tier of investigation. Now atmospheric phenomena may be
analysed for forecasts and other purposes by solving the primitive
dynamic equations along with the continuity and energy ones. However,
these equations constitute a system of nonlinear equations. In fact,
meteorology and climate variability are governed by what may be called

11

complexity [158, 206]. The environmental variables actually observed are

the consequences of thousand of events, some of which may be poorly
defined or imperfectly understood [68, 149]. As such, the complete system
of equations, as applied in environmental problems, is so complex that no
analytical solutions are known. One is obliged to find approximate
solutions by either finding exact analytical solutions of a simplified
subsystem of equations or solving a more complete set of equations by
numerical techniques. Both these methods are frequently combined to
allow a study of atmospheric phenomena. However, such atmospheric
models of meteorological phenomena are simplistic in their nature [9], in
the sense of hiding the essential character of nature as it really is.
This failure of reaching an exact solution and the fact that
environmental phenomena nearly always include random components
prompt us to leave the purely deterministic approach and invoke instead
pseudo-randomness or stochasticity. As regards pseudo-randomness, the
time evolution of globally coupled dynamical systems may exhibit various
kinds of phase transition, depending on the degree of nonlinearity and as
measured by the mutual information, in the form of development of
coherence, order, intermittence, and even turbulence [91]. Thus the
question is whether the system exhibits destruction of coherence by
chaotic instability in each element or synchronization by global averaging.
If the nonlinearity is large enough, the former tendency wins.

12

The question, thus, is whether the climate is chaotic. Or else the

climate change is predictable and models can be used to provide
predictions of climate change due to human activities. Which assumption
is justified? One may argue that the consistency resulting from model
application such as the ability to describe the current climate and its
seasonal variations, the reproducibility of predictions, and reasonable
consistency between different models could be a property of the
models rather than of the climate.
One may turn for evidence to the record of climates of the past.
Correlations between the Milankovitch cycles in the earths orbital
parameters and the cycles of climate change over the past half million
years provide strong evidence to substantiate the earths orbital variations
as the main factor responsible for the triggering of climate change [83].
However, the nature of feedbacks controlling the different amplitudes of
response to the three orbital variations need to be understood. Some 60
10 % of the variance in the record of global average temperature from
paleontological sources over the past million years is close to frequencies
identified in the Milankovitch cycles scenario. The presence of such a
surprising amount of regularity suggests that the climate system is not
strongly chaotic so far as these large changes are concerned but responds
in a largely predictable way to the Milankovitch forcing. Moreover, this
Milankovitch forcing arises from changes in the distribution of solar
radiation over the earth because of variations in the earths orbit. Changes

13

in climate as a result of the increase of greenhouse gases are also driven by

changes in the radiative regime at the top of the atmosphere. These
changes are not dissimilar in kind (although different in distribution) from
the changes which provide the Milankovitch forcing. It can be argued
therefore that the increases in greenhouse gases will also result in a largely
predictable response. In fact, as we demonstrate later (cf. Chapter 4), the
GW phenomenon may largely be considered as linear or quadratic.
We are thus left with randomness, which leads us to a
consideration of the asymptotic theory of distribution of stochastic
processes for understanding environmental phenomena. Now much of the
asymptotic theory rests on the assumption that the stochastic process
consists of a sequence of independent random variable. This independence
helps one establish the central limit theorem, establishing that under very
general conditions the sum of a sequence of random variables, suitably
normalised, has a normal distribution asymptotically [75]. However,
dependent sequence of random variables are required to adequately model
meteorological variables. Fortunately, the central limit theorem still holds
for many dependent processes used to model meteorological data [134].
Roughly speaking, the central limit theorem for stationary
stochastic processes requires that the process possess a certain type of
asymptotic independence (i.e. observations separated by a large amount of
time should be nearly independent). We note that this central limit
theorem is identical to that for independent identically distributed random

14

variable, except for a change in the variance normalising factor to take

into account the correlation structure of the stochastic process.
Again, the central limit theorem holds for first-order AR-processes
under the stationarity condition. The variance of the sum of the process
will be greater than that for an independent process. The central limit
theorem also holds for higher-order AR-processes, with a slightly more
complicated expression for the variance normalising factor. In the case of
AR-processes of order possibly greater than one, this central limit theorem
has been applied to perform tests of significance for GCM climate
experiments.
Interestingly, in globally coupled dynamical systems, the law of
large numbers is violated but the central limit theorem holds [97]. As we
noted above, the validity of central limit theorem ensures that the
phenomenon in question is represented by the normal distribution [216].
This, in turn, validates an application of stochastic and regression
modelling of time series [24-25, 67, 81, 84, 101-102, 131, 154-155, 215].
In addition, compared with most of the diffusion models, these techniques
have the added virtue of being based on the relevant empirical information
of the time variation of the urban traffic-related atmospheric greenhouse
gas concentration and its relationship with the meteorological data (see
Chapter 3).
Now, as we show later (cf. Chapter 3), our dataset shows
nonstationarity. But, as we have just seen, the asymptotic statistical

15

independence of random variables involved requires stationarity. This

calls for process of toning down the nonstationarity. As shown later (cf.
Chapter 4), this can be done by resorting to an appropriate differencings,
leading to a kind of integrated moving average approach [117]. However,
as is shown later (cf. Chapter 4), our models do not involve moving
averages.

1.4

Procedural steps behind the approach taken here

In the light of the principles outlined in Section 1.3, Chapter 2 considers

the problem of sources of greenhouse gas concentration. Thus it
determines the distribution type obeyed by the individual datasets of
greenhouse gas concentration for urban Karachi for the years 1969, 1975,
1982, and 1983 by carrying out an exploratory analysis. The involved
missing data problem is then resolved by constructing a data model of
atmospheric

urban

traffic-related

atmospheric

greenhouse

gas

concentration using classical simple linear, quadratic, exponential, and

logarithmic regression based on the robust analysis via mean absolute
deviation (rather than the standard SSE approach). By way of an adequacy
check of the model, Mann-Whitney test compares the model for the
monthly mean obtained with the data model results for the individual
monthly data sets.
Next the bootstrap (with new hybrid type Random Number
Generator (RNG), proposed in this chapter, which is suitable for small

16

samples) resampling technique is applied to compute the confidence

interval of the mean annual, , of the concentration for the 15-year model
covering 1969 to 1983. The statistic, , thus obtained non-parametrically
should not, in general, be of much use if it is not compared and contrasted
with the determined parametrically. Thus an EDA is also performed on
each year sample from the 15-year model to fit the relevant probability
models. The gamma and lognormal distributions so obtained are subjected
to the 2-test to check for their adequacy. Then the parameter is
P

determined using maximum likelihood estimation technique and applying

the p-value theory. The calculated parametrically is compared with that
got non-parametrically with a view to bolstering the latter.
Chapter 3 first addresses the problem of sources of greenhouse gas
concentration like congestion, traffic volume, etc. to get a benchmark on
the local traffic-related atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration beyond
1983. Thus, after carrying out an EDA, a probabilistic model for the
Karachi city traffic congestion data is constructed, which is used to
establish a linear relationship between delay times and extra fuel
consumption. As yet another handle to understand the long-term behaviour
of the local traffic-related atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration after
1983 a simple linear regression is implemented using the data model (for a
15-year period) developed in Chapter 2.
Next we obtain an empirical model for the local atmospheric
temperature fluctuation due to traffic using generalised linear regression

17

based on exact maximum likelihood. The generalised version is invoked in

view of non-applicability of the usual regression here because the
predictor, local traffic-related atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration,
contains errors in the values and because we want optimised regression
coefficients. Finally, the empirical model of local temperature constructed
above is provided validations.
Chapter 4 develops a set of model selection criteria by carrying out
a time series analysis of the phenomena of global and local temperature
fluctuations. The problem of understanding persistency and antipersistency is also important in relation to global warming fluctuation. It is
analysed by estimating Hurst exponent (H) for global warming fluctuation
data. Trend analysis demonstrates that the degree of non-linearity in global
warming fluctuation is gradually increasing. It further explores the
warming dynamics as Martingale and Markov processes. Next it carries
out a correlation analysis between global and local temperature
fluctuations to establish a possible relationship between the two
temperature fluctuations phenomena based on Bayesian regression
technique. Finally, the model uncertainty is discussed.
Chapter 5 summarizes the work performed in this thesis. Thesis
also gives three published papers (in appendices) and complete list of
publications coming out from this work.

18

Chapter 2

Developing an Imputation Scheme for the Missing Data

Problem for Urban Traffic-Related Greenhouse Gas Emissions

2.1

Probabilistic structure of fluctuations of atmospheric

greenhouse gas emissions arising from urban traffic system

The atmospheric dynamics of air pollutants is a highly complex and nonlinear process, which can only reasonably be understood by using
comprehensive mathematical models. Models including such approaches
form the basis for testing how future changes in emissions will impact
atmospheric structure, air quality, etc [146, 160]. There have been several
efforts in developing mathematical models of urban atmospheric
greenhouse gas concentrations for different cities of the world [96, 140,
186, 214]. But any physical model can be implemented for successful
scientific forecast and analyses when a sizeable dataset based on
systematic observation and experiment is available. Now, as pointed out in
Chapter 1, collective roadside greenhouse gas data due to traffic is
important to gauge the urban air greenhouse gas concentration due to
urban traffic level and their effect on local meteorology. However, as we
have also seen in Chapter 1, the missing data problem (non-availability of
sufficient amount of data and a lack of attempt at systematization of
relevant data by the government initiatives, industries, etc.) happens to be

19

a major handicap which thwarts every attempt at standard route to

modeling and analysis of the problem of environmental emissions from
the urban transport system in Karachi Region or any other thickly
populated urban area in Pakistan. This asks one to look for alternative
approaches to model the atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions
phenomenon at the local level of megacities, before proceeding to link
such processes with the global ones.
As such, this chapter attempts to seek the possible mathematical
structure governing road-side greenhouse gas emissions based on fortyeight monthly real-time observations from nine zones in Karachi Region
spanning a period 1969 to 1983 [18]. As we know, atmosphere is a
complex physical system owing to the presence of an indefinitely large
number of degrees of freedom. The other major factor influencing
atmospheric greenhouse emissions viz. the unpredictability of human
activities also has a random element. So the behavior of the emissions can
be predicted in probabilistic terms rather than the deterministic one. One
possible method to compute the general trend corresponding to the
available samples lies in determining their a priori behaviour. To arrive at
the correct distribution of the available greenhouse gas concentration data,
the most natural avenue is to perform an exploratory analysis of the given
samples, which follows.

20

2.1.1

Assessing the shape and related features of atmospheric

greenhouse gas concentration distributions

The stem-and-leaf diagrams for 1969, 1975, 1982, and 1983 greenhouse
gas concentration due to urban traffic datasets are constructed in Fig. 2.1
(a-d). They give us a general idea of the shape of the distributions
represented by the corresponding datasets. For instance, we see that all the
samples have right-tailed distribution. This, in turn, means that the
greenhouse gas concentrations have low degree of normality. However,
the 1969 data exhibit a high degree of normality. Again, the frequency
histograms obeyed by the four samples mentioned above are worked out
in Fig. 2.2 (a-d). They confirm the right-tailed structure of the samples
emerging from stem-and-leaf graphs.
In assessing the nature of the distribution obeyed by real-time data,
one also needs to see if extreme values could reasonably be expected to
have arisen by chance. To detect the possible outliers (relative distance of
a suspect point from the mean value) in the samples, we construct the boxplots (see Fig. 2.3), which show that there are no extreme outliers in any
samples. Looking more closely, we find that the spread of the third sample
is higher as compared to that of others. Moreover, the diagrams provide
yet another confirmation of our earlier result that the distributions obeyed
by atmospheric greenhouse gases concentration due to urban traffic are in
general right-tailed.

21

2.1.2

Determining distribution structure via tests for normality

For further evidence regarding the mathematical structure of the

population of traffic-related atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions, we
check for the deviation from normality using multiple normality tests, so
that comparisons and contrasts clearly bring out the character of the
population distribution. Thus we subject the constructed model to the KST
[Kolmogorov-Smirnov D-test] [ 13], which tests whether the statistic

D = max|F(x) G(x)|

(2.1)

exceeds a critical value in the K-S table, G(x) and F(x) being respectively
the sample cumulative distribution and the predetermined cumulative
distribution corresponding to a given a sample of size n. For a further
check, we apply the ADT [Anderson-Darling A2-test] [92], where the
P

hypothesis testing is based on comparing the parameter in question with

the large values of the statistic

A2 =
P

1
n

(2i 1) [ln ui + ln (1 un i + 1)] n,

B

(2.2)

where ui is the value of the theoretical cumulative distribution at the ith

B

largest observation, n being as usual the number of observations. Lastly,

we consider SWT [Shapiro-Wilk W-test], which employs the statistic

22

n
n

2
W = a i xi ( xi x ) ,
i =1
i =1

(2.3)

where the values of the weight ai (i {1 ,2 , L , n}) depend only on the

B

sample size n, x having the usual meaning [166-167].

The final distributions, thus obtained, obeyed by the local urban
greenhouse emission samples are subjected for further validation to the 2P

goodness-of-fit test. The results of the three normality tests applied to each
sample are as follows:
Samp-1: ADT: A2 = 0.269,

p-value = 0.676

SWT: W = 0.9971,

p-value (approx.) > 0.100

KST: D = 0.045,

p-value 0.15

Samp-2: ADT: A2 = 0.545,

p-value = 0.158

SWT: W = 0.9946,

p-value (approx.) > 0.100

KST: D = 0.091,

p-value 0.034

Samp-3: ADT: A2 = 0.803,

p-value = 0.037

SWT: W = 0.9874,

p-value 0.0454

KST: D = 0.065,

p-value 0.15

Samp-4: ADT: A2 = 0.487,

P

p-value = 0.220

SWT: W = 0.9947,

p-value (approx.) > 0.100

KST: D = 0.076,

p-value 0.127

23

The tests suggest that the data for 1969 seem to follow normal
distribution, with the p-value of 0.15. However, the 1975 data show low
degree of normality (p-value being 0.049) and follow gamma distribution,

fX (x) =

1 x
, (x 0, >0, >0),
x
e
()

E[X] =

Var(X) =

,
2

(2.4a)

(2.4b)

as validated by the 2-goodness-of-fit test. Although the data for 1982

P

show some degree of normality (p-value being 0.09), they are closer to
gamma distribution as confirmed by the 2-test. As for the 1983 sample,
P

the tests show a low degree of normality (p-value being 0.032), and an
application of 2-test shows that it follows lognormal distribution,
P

fX (x) =
B

1
x 2
+

E[X] = e

ln x

1
2

, ( < < + ),

(2.5a)

Var(X) = e

2 + 2

e 2 1 ,

(2.5b)

a lognormal process being one in which the random variable of interest

results from the product of many independent random variables multiplied
together.
24

As we see from the calculations carried out above, the greenhouse

gas emissions from traffic flow follow different distributions. In particular,
the changes in distribution from normal to gamma and then to lognormal
indicate that the distribution is becoming increasingly heavy tailed.
Further, the gradual growth of the right-skewed structure of the
distributions obtained here shows that there exists a higher emission rate
of greenhouse gases in megacity set-up like Karachi. This result in
combination with the result of heavy-tailing of the distribution shows the
incidence of increased rate of traffic congestion, with high emission rates.
This gives a higher time-rate of increase in traffic volume. This is
indicative of a presence of factors like a decreasing rate of average speed
of vehicles in a megacity environment, higher probability of most of the
vehicles being in poor conditions and requiring maintenance, an enhanced
rate of "tunnel effect" as a result of construction of multi-storied buildings
and high rises along busy roads, and incidence of other physical changes
in the environment like bad road conditions. To sum up, the annual
unfolding of the process considered here is important in that it reflects
site-specific peculiarities of the process and so is particularly capable of
catching an information concerning the variability on annual to decadal
decadal to inter-decadal and similar time scales.

2.2

Developing an imputation scheme for the missing data problem

Having computed the mathematical structure of the involved sample

25

distributions, the next obvious problem is to use it as a guide to construct a

data model giving the general trend of greenhouse gas emissions
variability. Several regions of the world lack in having complete climaterelated data sets [44, 151]. There are several approaches to estimating
missing data and the uncertainties in the model parameters [17, 21, 36,
126, 162, 174-175, 187]. However, as it is increasingly being used to
handle missing data problems, we will invoke here the principles of
imputation to develop the required model. Broadly speaking, an imputed
value is substituted for the missing value, for example mean substitution,
widely available in statistical softwares. In its more systematic form, the
imputed values are predicted from patterns underlying the real-time (nonmissing) sample data [31].

2.2.1

Constructing the time series of greenhouse gas concentrations

How to construct the time series governing the average monthly urban
greenhouse gas concentration values i.e. how to compute the unknown
long-term trend of the process. In conjunction with the principles of
linearisation in mathematical analysis and the theory of Taylors series and
polynomials, we apply the robust technique of minimum MAD (mean
absolute deviation) to sift out the best trend equations based on the given
samples. A little tedious computation, thus, lands us on the following
polynomial equation of degree 2, logarithmic equation, and exponential
equation as the appropriate choice:

26

y = a + b log x + e

(2.6)

y = a + bx + cx2 + e

(2.7)

y = a eb x + e,

(2.8)

the error terms, e N(0, 2), being approximately of the shape of normal
P

distribution with mean 0 and a finite variance 2. Their graphical

P

representation constructed in Figures 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6 is quite revealing.

As we move from Eq. (2.6) to (2.8), we find that growth and order of
functions is rapidly increasing. This shows the effect of seasonality on
greenhouse gas concentration in a megacity environment; As the air speed
in summer is higher, Eq. (2.6) reflects slow growth and order of
concentration, while, as the air speed in winter is lower, Eq. (2.8) shows
very high growth and order of the function. Eq. (2.7) translates the
meteorological conditions for other periods during the year. Thus Eqs.
(2.6) to (2.8) taken together with distributions obtained in Section 2.2
provide us with quite a useful handle on the problem of megacity
greenhouse emissions in that the former describes season-specific
unfolding of the process while the latter depicts site-specific temporal
evolution on a larger decadal, inter-decadal, or higher scale.
Next we apply the interpolation technique, rather than the
extrapolation approach (for better results), to the emerging 108 trend
equations to obtain a data model for the years 1969 to 1983. To validate

27

the construction, we compare the constructed data model with the given
samples using the nonparametric method of Mann-Whitney test later
on, we compare the results of this nonparametric approach with those
based on a parametric method. What we find is that the tests are
significant and cannot be rejected at 5% level.
However, environmental variables like concentrations of trafficrelated atmospheric pollutants observed in a megacity are often influenced
by hundreds or thousands of sources in the area, atmospheric variables
(such as wind speed and direction, temperature, and atmospheric stability),
mechanical mixing and dilution, chemical reactions in the atmosphere,
interaction with physical surfaces or biological systems, and other
phenomena, events which may be poorly defined or imperfectly
understood. Moreover, even the technique of imputation of random data
may introduce bias in missing data computation. To take into account such
effects, the lower and upper bounds need to be computed in a way that the
bias minimises, which is carried out below.

2.2.2

Applying bootstrap resampling Monte Carlo Simulation

Currently, there is much research interest in how to improve methods for

finding such bounds. As the nonclassical approach of Monte Carlo
simulation technique [152] of bootstrap resampling [42, 46, 69, 82]
ensures an optimal reduction in bias compared with jacknifing or classical
methods of estimation [61], we employ bootstraping to compute

28

confidence intervals. Another problem is that of ensuring an optimal

reduction of errors that may creep in due to a reduction in the degree of
randomness of the random generator [156] used in the simulation process
for computing the bounds. As the newly emerging modelling technique of
cellular automata is highly efficient and the symbolic computing package
of Mathematica [211] is based on it, we implement our bootstrap
resampling via Mathematica. We first propose our new Random Number
Generator (RNG), which is of hybrid type in the following section.

2.2.2.1. Random Number Generator and Statistical Tests

A new kind of hybrid Random Number Generator (RNG) for bootstrap
resampling is proposed which seems to give better confidence intervals of
mean for smaller number of bootstrap samples.
Mathematically, a random number generator can be defined as a
structure (S; ; f; U; g), where S is a finite set of states, is a probability
distribution on S used to select the initial state (or seed) s0, the mapping f :
B

S S is the transition function, U is a finite set of output symbols, and g

: S U is the output function. The state evolves according to the
recurrence:

sn = f(sn
B

1),
B

(for n 1)

A popular and well-tested scheme employs an equation of the form:

29

(2.9)

xn + 1 = (a xn + b) mod m
B

(2.10)

The arithmetic performed here is modulo m, with m typically 16 or 32, so

that only the lowest 16 or 32 bits are kept in calculation of xn+1. Here xn is
B

the nth random number in the sequences, and a and b are carefully chosen
P

constants. Equation (2.10) is known as Linear Congruential Generator

(LCG). The numbers generated from (2.10) will be random in the sense
that they are evenly distributed over the allowed range. Many-person years
of work have been devoted to establishing these facts and to learning how
best to choose the values of a and b. The reason why the sequence of
numbers obtained from (2.10) behaves randomly is also very interesting. It
turns out that it is an example of a chaotic system! it is closely related to
what is known as the logistic map, an equation whose solutions are known
to exhibit chaotic behavior [60].
LCGs have some unpleasant properties. When taken in pairs,
triplets, or n-tuples, the random values often fall on only a few planes in nspace (see Fig. 2.7). However, our proposed RNG and Wolfram [211]
integer random numbers which uses cellular automata rule 30, give
random triplets (see Fig. 2.8). Cellular automata rule 30 method also
behaves chaotically [49, 97, 100, 188, 212].
The proposed random numbers generator, which is a hybrid of
Marsaglia-Zaman [116], a Subtract-with-Borrow generator of the
following form:

30

x(n) = x(n-s) - x(n-r) - carry mod m

(2.11)

and a Linear Congruential Generator (LCG) by Knuth.

x(n+1) = 8121 x(n) + 28411 (mod 134456)

(2.12)

The Marsaglia-Zaman generators have much longer periods, from 10200 to

P

10500, than LCGs, and they are almost as fast as LCGs. Unfortunately they
P

too have the problem of falling mainly on the planes. We take seed from
(2.11) which has already been implemented as built-in function Random[ ]
in Mathematica, for the LCG defined by (2.12). Then, we transform the
obtained number into the integer. The advantage of the new method is that
we get better random integer for small sample size, consequently we get
reasonable confidence interval in bootstrap resampling as compared to the
Wolfram random integer generator for lower number of resampling.
Although we have proved better performance of our proposed RNG in a
practical case (see Figs. 2.9 (a & b) for symmetric performance), we also
apply some of the statistical tests below.

2.2.2.2.

Statistical Testing

Random Number Generators (RNGs) should be constructed based on a

sound mathematical analysis of their structural properties. Due to
advances in developing better algorithms and test methods [171, 199], the

31

problem raised by the deterministic nature of pseudorandom numbers is

not as serious as one might suspect. The number of different tests that can
be defined is infinite and these different tests detect different problems
with the RNGs. Some tests are defined for Composite Random Numbers
[198]. There is no universal test or battery of tests that can guarantee,
when passed, that a given generator is fully reliable for all kinds of
simulations. Passing a lot of tests may improve one's confidence in the
RNG, but never proves that the RNG is foolproof. We know that, no RNG
can pass all statistical tests. Statistical tests are based solely on the random
variates produced. Following are some of the statistical tests applied for
testing randomness:

1. Runs Test of Independence: The runs test of independence is a

nonparametric method used to test the assumption of independence for
data from a single data set. This is a direct test of the independence
assumption and gives the significant results at = 0.05 for both the
generators. Minitab, version 11 for Windows (Minitab Inc., 1996) was
utilised for Runs Test of Independence, and Mann-Whitney U-test.

2. Autocorrelation Test of Independence: As an alternative to the runs test

of independence we also propose the autocorrelation test to consecutive
values. This test is based on values of the correlation coefficients
calculated from all pairs of data points separated by k time periods, where

32

k, the lag time. Such autocorrelation coefficients between consecutive

values of the same variable are called autocorrelation coefficients. Figures
2.10 and 2.11 give autocorrelations up to 10 lags for n = 108 random
integers from Wolfram and proposed hybrid random integer generators. Tstatistics and Ljung-Box Q statistics show better values as compared to
Wolfram. It gives more random integers. Autocorrelation Test of
Independence was performed using STATISTICA Version 5 software.

3. Test for Uniformity: As we know histograms are also useful graphical

tool to see the randomness behavior of generated data. The randomness
revealed by Wolfram defined random integers and our hybrid method of
random number generator are shown in Figures 2.12 and 2.13 for n = 108.
It is clear from the histograms that the proposed generator gives more
uniform random numbers for small number of generated random integers.
Similarly, histograms shown in Figures 2.14 and 2.15 demonstrate the
case for n = 1000 and reveal that the proposed generator gives more
uniform random numbers.
Without loss of general precision, we can use the standard
bootstrap method which is nonparametric in nature, because it is the
simplest method for obtaining bootstrap confidence limits. The principle

is normally distributed with mean 0 and

here is that if an estimator
standard deviation , then there is a probability of 1 that the statement

33

 z/2 < <

+ z/2

(2.13)

, where z/2 is the value that is exceeded

holds for any random value of
B

with probability /2 for the standard normal distribution. The confidence

interval is given by the rule

estimate z/2 bootstrap standard deviation.

B

(2.14)

Plugging z.025 = 1.96 in Eq. (2.14), we get the standard 95% bootstrap
B

interval. Thus, using bootstrap resampling scheme of 1000 samples for

each of the 108 datapoint of the constructed data model corresponding to
the nine Karachi zones, we compute the means of annual greenhouse gas
concentration for 15-years data and their 95% confidence intervals as
given in Table 2.1.

2.2.3

Checking the constructed data model for homogeneity in traffic

density

A comparison of the nonparametric estimation of the annual mean, , of

the urban traffic-related greenhouse emissions concentration just
concluded with that done parametrically via the approximate MLE
technique and the p-value theory shows that the determinations agree well
(see Table 2.1). This, thus, bolsters the data model constructed.

34

More importantly, the imputation scheme presented here offers a

solution model for the missing data problem faced by urban centres in
developing countries. In fact, as we show in the next section, the result is
of deeper significance for it can be harnessed to analyse changes in the
level of local heating. One can also exploit the model constructed here to
study things like local pollution rise and global blanket effect (see Chapter
3 and 4).
As Section 1 demonstrates, questions like analysis of greenhouse
warming, greenhouse gas emissions forecast, right emission management
decisions, etc. ask for more systematic analysis of such processes than
undertaken hitherto. It shows in particular that, contrary to the popular
view, greenhouse emissions from traffic flow in densely urbanized centres
of the world is no less important than the contributions from industry,
deforestation, etc., this being particularly true of countries in the South
Asian Region. Unfortunately, however, data collection in such countries is
sparse. This requires a clear methodology and development of appropriate
indicators to handle the problem.
Thus Section 2 addresses the problem of modelling the
phenomenon of urban traffic-related greenhouse gas concentration
fluctuations, with Karachi Region as a case study. Carrying out a detailed
EDA shows that such emissions have a hybrid probabilistic structure,
normal modifying into gamma and gamma into lognormal distributions. It
is important in that it reflects the site-specific peculiarities of the process

35

and so is particularly capable of catching an information concerning the

variability on annual to decadal and inter-decadal time scales.
Employing Monte Carlo bootstrap resampling technique, Section 3
then constructs a time series of greenhouse gas concentrations for 1969 to
1983 based on four such samples from nine zones of Karachi Region.

2.3

An extension of constructed data model of annual mean

concentration of urban traffic-related greenhouse gases

Now how about the long term trends and oscillations that subsume the
data model constructed in Section 2 as a special case? To render it useful
empirically for any meteorological studies, an extension of the time series
constructed in the previous section beyond 1983 is required because of the
fact that sample size should be large enough. Thus we first carry out an
exploratory analysis in Section 3.1 and use its results for the construction
of a trend model.

2.3.1. Problem of computing the long-term trend of greenhouse gas

concentration
We regard a trend as a long term change (usually an increase) in the mean
greenhouse gas concentration due to urban traffic over several years. Thus
a trend is quite different from day to day or hour to hour variation (which
can be thought of as random variation about the overall trend), and also
quite different from seasonal (or monthly) factors that represent the

36

variability of the mean concentration during a year. The trend analysis

methods ignore the possibility of year-to-year serial dependence; the mean
values for two consecutive years being assumed to be independent. A
general problem is that it is very difficult to distinguish between a trend
(not necessarily linear) and this type of serial dependence because both
phenomena can lead to very similar concentration series. However, for
analyses based on data for the mean annual greenhouse gas concentration
this assumption of statistical independence between data from different
years is quite reasonable because there will be many months separating the
measurements from one year to the next.
With this proviso, as the first step in our exploratory analysis of the
time variability of concentration, C, we carry out a correlation analysis for
the data structure provided by the 15-year model. The computed
correlation between the two variables of greenhouse gas concentrations
and time comes out to be r = 0.468, which is statistically significant at
10% level as shown by the hypothesis testing based on the t-test.
Guided by the possibility of a direct relationship between the two
variables suggested by the correlation, we next attempt a classical
regression as the second step of our EDA of trends. Now regression
analysis is very commonly used in data analysis to study the relationship
between a response variable and one or more explanatory variables. To
use regression analysis, we have to make sure that the underlying
assumptions are met. These assumptions include the data has to be

37

continuous and normally distributed, observations have to be uncorrelated

and homogeneous variance across levels of the independent variable.
Thus, choosing the urban greenhouse gas emission fluctuations as the
response parameter and time as the predictor, the linear trend equation for
the annual mean concentration (in g m3), Ct, turns out to be
P

Ct = (65.66 1.27) + (24.58 0.20 )t + e,

B

R2 = 0.9994,
P

(for t 1),

(2.15)

Adj. R2 = 0.9993
P

the error terms e N(0, 0.421) i.e. e being approximately of the shape of
normal distribution with mean 0 and a finite variance 0.421 and R2 being
P

the usual coefficient of determination.

For a further countercheck on the existence of trend revealed by
(2.15), as our next EDA step we invoke the principles of non-classical
generalised linear regression [135] modelling of mean annual greenhouse
gas concentration. Such a check should take care of possible violations of
the assumptions that go in the construction (2.15). In particular, its exact
maximum likelihood estimation of parameters [104, 111] minimizes the
errors of estimates compared with the classical, this arising from the
optimised results i.e. optimised regression coefficients in the generalised
regression.
Thus, choosing, as above, the urban greenhouse gas emission
fluctuations as the response parameter and time as the predictor, the trend

38

equation for the annual mean concentration, Ct, as shown by the

B

constructed data 15-year data model, works out to be

Ct = (65.47 1.234) + (24.61 1.092 )t + e,

B

(for t 1),

(2.16)

Notice that the standard errors are shown in this equation along with the
corresponding estimates.
For diagnostic checks of the model, we employ the concept
deviance residuals, a measure of the difference between the log likelihood
of the fitted model and that of the saturated model. Here saturated model
means the model with fitted values equal to the observed data, so
that it has maximum achievable log likelihood. To compute the deviance
residuals, we take dof (degrees of freedom) as 8, without any loss of
generality. Then the normal QQ-plot i.e. the graph of deviance residuals,
which has normal distribution N(0, 4.33), versus quantiles of standard
normal yields

deviance residual = 51.05

(2.17)

Thus we see that the value of the deviance residual is highly encouraging
(about 5).
There next arises the problem of model validation. The goodnessof-fit test of a generalised linear model is also based on deviance.
Therefore, the likelihood ratio test, with 8 dof (degrees of freedom), gives
39

p-value = 0.0030
and shows that the model is statistically significant. Now what is the
physics behind the above mathematics? As is well known, regression and
correlation are highly related. As such, it appears useful to look into the
so-called coefficient of determination, R2, for our model (2.16):
P

R2 = 1
P

deviance
= 0.9995
null deviance

Adj. R2 = R2
P

2
= 0.9994,
null deviance

(2.18a)

(2.18b)

Where,
deviance =

( y i y i )2 ,
i =1

null deviance =

( y i y )2 ,

(2.19)

i =1

y = y

y being the model value of concentration. In other words, the model

explains about one-fifth of the total variance in local concentration
fluctuations solely from the contributions from the traffic-related
greenhouse gas emissions. As is shown more vividly by the graphical
representations in Figure 2.16, this result compares well with the observed
local concentration variability. However, one needs to enlarge the sample
size of urban greenhouse gas emissions in order to use the model for a
long term forecast. In other words, the present model is a function of

40

sample size. As expected, the residual values from the two models show
that the generalised linear model gives the lower SSE as compared to the
classical linear regression method.

2.3.2

Relationship between greenhouse gas concentration due to urban

traffic volume and city population using Ridge Regression

The existence of an increasing trend of greenhouse gas concentration as

determined by the preceding EDA asks for a multiple regression to
compute the annual mean concentrations from 1983 to 1993. The multiple
regression is invoked because of the possibility of an interplay of
important urban structure parameters like city population and total traffic
volume with the annual mean, , of concentration. However, the usual
regression procedure will fail because the predictors involved viz. city
population and total traffic volume are highly correlated (r = 0.991). This
is why a ridge regression approach is developed. Before developing ridge
regression, polynomial models for total city traffic volume and city
population are constructed.
Now, first we discuss the Karachi city population dynamics and
then the total traffic volume evolution in the city in past three decades. We
also develop mathematical models for these two important urban
parameters. Finally, we try to establish a relationship between greenhouse
gas concentration due to urban traffic, traffic volume and city population
using ridge regression.

41

Now we discuss the population of Karachi and its growth rate.

Projections for the future population are based on current trends and
T

expert guesses about changes that are likely to occur. Even the best
projections can be overwhelmed by unexpected events. According to
T

Asian Development Bank (ADB) [191] and United Nations, the annual
population growth in Karachi is 4.2 percent and if we consider the
population in 1972 as the base value then the following formula gives the
population growth model for the Karachi urban region.

M(t) = 3.61 (1 + 0.042)t

P

(2.20)

The variable t represents time in years starting from 1972. The city
T

population was 3.61 million in 1972. For the year 2000, the estimated
population comes out to be 11.42 million, which is very close to the value
as projected by the ADB and United Nations. Present population of
Karachi is very close to 14 million [90]. Model (2.20) gives a value 14.6
million, which is very close to the reported value. Therefore, we may say
that model (2.20) is the appropriate model for the evolution of city
population.
As regards traffic volume parameter of the problem, the record of
motor vehicle population in Karachi region from Karachi Development
Authority (KDA) traffic engineering bureau, shows that the total traffic
volume doubled from 0.5 million in 1985 to 1.0 million in 1999. In the

42

world it takes twenty years [65] to double the traffic volume but as can be
observed from the traffic data in Karachi, it took 15 years.
A mathematical model for the total traffic volume in Karachi
region is given by

V(t) = (402.805 5.191) + (38.393 0.969) t

(0.5305 0.0408) t2 + e,
P

(2.21)

where e has its standard meaning. For this model, R2 = 0.99906 and
P

Adj. R = 0.99953. Data for 23 years were used to obtain the above model.
The above model will be utilised to estimate the near future values of city
traffic volume in the following model development.
Clearly, the city traffic congestion is proportional to city traffic
volume and city population. However, as the two predictors are highly
correlated (r = 0.91), we invoke the ridge regression method to construct a
model for estimation of the city traffic-related greenhouse concentration
[125]. Lambda, , the value of injected degree of biasedness turns out to
be 0.003. Such a small amount of biasedness gives a significant model.

C(P,V) = (64.21 4.96) + (3.47 1.42)P

+ (57.35 21.62)V + e,
R2 = 0.99825,
P

Adj. R = 0.99941.

43

(2.22)

The parameter values are also significant with p-values 0.0448 and 0.0328
for P and V respectively. Cross validation method was applied to validate
the model. The values obtained from the model were within 95% CI.
The above model can also be utilized both by the urban planners
and environmentalist to estimate the future traffic related greenhouse gas
concentration as a consequence of increase in city population and traffic
volume. Increase in population is actually the main factor, which is
responsible for environmental degradation [138]. We use this model to
forecast the annual greenhouse gas concentration values after 1983 upto
1993 to establish a regression model between the greenhouse gas
concentration and the local concentration fluctuation.
To sum up, the annual mean greenhouse emission concentration
model developed here is the first of its kind for the region considered,
which should in general facilitate the work undertaken by SERD, Asian
Institute of Technology. In fact, the work could also be useful in
modelling the missing data problem in any general context. The research
could also be utilised in areas of environment and sustainable development
programme like pollution reduction, prevention, and control problems, urbanT

regional environmental quality management, the design of efficient energy and

T

traffic control policies, developing synergy between global / regional / subT

regional activities, management of ecosystems, sustainable development

T

indicators and assessment, etc.

T

44

Finally, appropriate empirical model of the greenhouse gas

concentration for investigation to follow in subsequent chapters.

45

Chapter 3

Urban Greenhouse Gas Concentration and Local Temperature

Fluctuations

Although there has been an expansion of urban field campaigns in recent

years, relatively little research has been conducted in the dry Tropics. This
is a concern because, although urbanization is increasing worldwide, these
increases are much more marked in less developed countries [146]. These
rapid rates of urban growth have led to progressive deterioration of urban
and periurban environments [22]. However, these rapid changes generally
occur in the absence of any planning with respect to indoor or outdoor
thermal comfort [5]. Moreover, Global climate change as a consequence
of anthropogenic changes or forcings in the composition and structure of
the atmosphere poses scientific questions of a nature and interdisciplinary
scope that are unprecedented. Uncertainties in the climate forecast are
large and thus far have hampered the establishment of a clear world plan
for preventing or mitigating against unacceptable effects. The forecast of
global / regional and local climate changes depends on the development of
a sound understanding of the factors that change the global heat balance
and thus influence the climate [33]. In this chapter, we analyse the urban
traffic congestion data, which is responsible for enhanced greenhouse
effect due to urban traffic and try to model local temperature fluctuations

46

as a function of GHG emissions due to urban traffic and establish the

relationship between the local and global temperature variations. But
before going into the details of the relationship we discuss the surface
temperature fluctuation mechanism.

3.1 The surface temperature fluctuation mechanism

Until quite recently the radiative output of the sun was considered, for the
purpose of climate forecasts, to be constant. However, the ultraviolet and
X-ray emissions from the sun vary continually and greatly, like those from
any other normal star. On the other hand, the earth's upper atmosphere acts
as a sponge, soaking up the unseen radiation. The temperature variations
in the high-altitude atmosphere resulting from the switch-over of the sun
from high solar activity period to diminished solar activity times and vice
versa produce a cycle [10] of decade-long changes in stratospheric winds
that could produce weather changes in the lower atmosphere by some asyet-unknown mechanism.
As regrads sun's ''visible'' radiation, its fluctuations provide a
''direct'' warming or cooling of the lower atmosphere, where the climate
originates. They can, thus, either lessen or compound global warming
caused by atmospheric pollution. Present-day climate models suggest that
the observed 0.1 percent variation in the total solar radiative output could
produce a global equilibrium temperature change of 0.2 C if it persisted
for 50 to 100 years. They also indicate that the increase in global

47

temperature caused by unnatural greenhouse warming over the same

period is also 0.2 C. On time-scales of a decade or less, the forcing of
climate by low-level solar irradiance variability is today comparable to
that of human-induced activities estimated by models of greenhouse
effect. This suggests that the solar modulation should not be excluded if
we want to detect and assess the future effects of human industrial activity
on the global temperature record and our fragile environment [106].
Again, historical record and observations of other variable stars
and the analysis of the relationship between the length of the sunspot cycle
and global surface temperatures [52] indicate that pronounced fluctuation
in the solar output in the future may occur. For the sake of argument, let us
reject such a possibility in the foreseeable future. And assume, on the
contrary, that the climate's temperature is controlled, among other factors,
by sulfate aerosols emitted into the atmosphere by man-made industry and
naturally occurring volcanoes. Even then, if humans keep putting invisible
pollutants into the atmosphere at the present rate, unnatural greenhouse
warming could itself become important soon; its signature must eventually
break through the temperature record if it hasn't already, making the
terrestrial weather system quite energetic. Thus, although the uncertainties
in future forecast of global warming are great, a significant overall
warming of the atmosphere, surface and the bottom of earth masses (like
thermafrost under mountains) due to anthropogenic emissions of

48

greenhouse gases ought to occur sometime in the twenty-first century

[120].
Life as we know it is intimately related to some physical properties
of the sun-earth system. The surface temperature of the sun happens to be
around 5800 K, which results in an emission spectrum with a maximum at
wavelengths of 500 nm, corresponding to photon energies of 2.48 eV.
These energies correspond to excitations between molecular orbits or to
specific ionization energies. Thus the solar surface temperature possesses
exactly the right magnitude to induce photochemical reactions. The sunearth distance (1.49 1011 m) and the earth radius (6.4 106 m) result in
P

interception by the earth of 0.46 109 fraction of solar energy. With the
P

assumptions that the sun emits black body radiation, has a radius of 6.96
108 m and a temperature of 5800 K one may calculate that the earth
P

receives 1399 W m2 from the sun. The actual value of the solar constant S
P

is somewhat lower at S 1370 W m2.

P

The mass of the earth (m = 6 1024kg) and its radius are such that
P

the earth can keep an atmosphere. The gravitation is sufficiently strong to

tie essentially all the molecules. A relatively small change in these
parameters would have made life as we know it impossible. In this section
we shall look a little closer at temperature. In a stationary situation the
energy received from the sun equals the energy that the earth itself radiates
into space, that is,
energy in = energy out.

49

The first is given by the solar constant S, the solar energy intercepted by a
square meter, perpendicular to the sun. For the latter it is assumed that in a
first approximation the earth radiates as a black body of temperature T.
One takes into account the fact that a certain fraction of the sunlight,
called the albedo a, is reflected back into space. The energy equation then
becomes.

(1 a) R2 S = 4R2T4
P

(3.1)
P

Here is the StefanBoltzmann constant and R the earth radius. With an

estimated value of the albedo of about a = 0.34 one finds T = 250 K. One
usually puts it at T = 255 K. This should be the radiation temperature of
the earth, viewed from far away.
Atmospheric scientists derive from their observations a very much
simplified model for the radiation balance between the surface and
atmosphere of the earth. Equation (3.1) can be modified for a stationary
situation. The solar constant S should be divided by 4 as the energy
entering the earth disk R2 is distributed over the total area 4R2.
P

( ta) (1 as) S/4 + c(Ts Ta) +Ts4 (1 aa) Ta4 = 0

B

PB

PB

(3.2)

Here aa and as are the solar radiation for atmosphere and the surface; the
B

transmission for the atmosphere is defined as ta. The transmission of the

B

50

atmosphere for the infrared radiation is written as ta. The radiation

B

reflected back to earth is aa. The first term describes the absorption, the
B

second the non-radiative interaction between the atmosphere and surface,

the third the emitted radiation minus the backscattered and the last term
the incoming heat radiation from the atmosphere. Lost energy is taken as
positive. For the atmosphere, one finds similarly

(1 aa ta + as ta) S/4 c(Ts Ta) Ts4 (1 ta aa) + 2 Ta4 = 0 (3.3)

B

PB

PB

Here the first term is the solar absorption, the second the non-radiative
interaction, the third the absorption of earth radiation by the atmosphere
and the last the atmospheric emission. Addition of the first terms of
equations (3.2) and (3.3) shows that all solar energy is accounted for.
The surface temperature of the earth on average is 288 K and of
the atmosphere 255 K. The relatively high surface temperature is due to
the presence of gases like water vapour, CO2, O3, N2O and CH4, to name
B

the most crucial ones in the order of their contribution to the effect. As
discussed in Chapter 1, these gases absorb most of the heat radiation of the
earth and re-emit it back towards the earths surface. To understand this
one should realize that the differences in temperature of the sun and of the
earth result in quite a different spectrum.
The atmosphere is relatively transparent for short wavelengths but
it absorbs the longer wavelengths because of the presence of the so-called

51

greenhouse gases mentioned above. The atmosphere then operates as a

kind of blanket keeping the surface livable. This is called the greenhouse
effect. A similar process occurs in the agricultural green houses, although
an important part of the effect there is that the cover prevents nightly
convection and disappearance of atmospheric heated during the day.
At present the concentration of the green house gases is
continuously increasing due to natural and human causes. The different
gases absorb in different parts of the spectrum; therefore, when in a certain
wavelength region the absorption would be 100% a further increase in
concentration would not have any additional effect. It is obvious that the
increase in greenhouse gases will strongly influence the climate and result
in an increase in the average surface temperature of the earth. It is not
clear how fast the process develops and whether it would be detrimental
for all regions on the earth. The mechanism of climate change involves an
interplay of many physical and chemical processes.

3.2 Quantifying contribution of megacity traffic congestion to

urban greenhouse gas concentration due to urban traffic
Car is the biggest single cause of atmospheric pollution in the world [65].
To achieve acceptable atmospheric quality, additional motor vehicle
pollution control measures are needed [14, 102]. In this connection traffic
congestion problem is to be mitigated, because it lengthens and makes
uncertain the amount of time required to drive from one place to another;

52

creates extra pollution since cars stuck idling in heavy traffic pollute more
than cars that are moving.
As vehicle numbers grow, cities around the world face serious road
traffic congestion problems [163]. Costs include lost work and leisure
time, increased fuel consumption, atmospheric pollution, health problems,
stress, and discomfort [66, 176]. Further, congestion slows the movement
of goods and services, adding to the price of products and reducing the
competitiveness of business due to infrastructural shortages of transport
sector in case of Pakistan [51].
Although, several methods have been established to estimate the
fuel-related emissions. For example, atmospheric concentrations of several
VOCs, mainly due to cars in the urban areas, were compared for different
cities of the world [14]. CO and NOx levels were checked at the center of
B

city roads [113]. Multivariate statistical analysis was done on Polycyclic

Aromatic Hydrocarbon emissions from heavy-duty diesel vehicles [110].
Forecast models for daily air particulate Fe and Pb concentrations for
Madrid, Spain was established [94]. Chassis dynamometer study was done
for emissions from in-use heavy-duty diesel vehicles [138]. We are
interested in the study of road traffic congestion problem.
The dynamics of the traffic intensity, presented in this study,
originates from the annually performed traffic intensity inventories. Data
analysis revealed that the transport dynamics in Karachi has a diurnal,
weekly, seasonal and annual variation and is closely related to the people

53

business activities. According to the emission inventories data, on the

working days the morning transport peak occurs at 9-10 h and the evening
one at 18-20 h with constant high traffic intensity during the day. Only a
slight peak is observed at the lunch hours and low at night. On the
weekends the traffic dynamics has a pronounced midday peak while no
morning and evening peaks occur. Traffic signal settings also play an
important role in any urban area traffic control system [124].
The detailed statistical analysis of city traffic delays is performed
and extra fuel consumption due to traffic congestion is estimated in the
next section.

3.2.1 Statistical distributions of city traffic congestions

The total number of all types of motor vehicles on the road in Karachi
amounts to over 30% of all the vehicles in the country. The Traffic
Engineering Bureau (TEB) of Karachi has converted the traffic density at
a given point into Passenger Car Units (PCUs), using the conversion factor
[58] given in Table 3.1.
The EDA performed on the line of Chapter 2 reveals that the
overall city-traffic delay follows lognormal distribution. It is also
important that out of seven important intersections only one intersection
follows Gamma distribution. As discussed in chapter 2, a lognormal
process is one in which the random variable of interest results from the
product of many independent random variables multiplied together and

54

give more insight of the underlying processes. Table 3.2 gives the
estimated values for means and standard deviations, using the MLE
estimation method, of traffic delays during peak hours for the important
intersections of the four districts of Karachi. Figures 3.1-3.3 show the
probabilistic distributions of the delay time at different intersections of
Karachi. The estimated s are used in the following section to find out
the relationship between the city delay values and the extra fuel
consumption.

3.2.2

Relationship between delay and extra fuel consumption

Employing the s obtained above we got the following relationship

between delay and fuel consumption to estimate the additional fuel
consumption in Karachi region.

Fuel = (10.36 8.70) + (2.08 0.25) D

(3.4)

For the above model R2 = 0.92261 and R = 0.96053. Also, F(1,6)

P

= 71.53, with p-value = 0.00015, Std. error of estimate = 3.13

In USA megacities, generally 40% of all fuel consumption is

attributable to vehicles stopped and idling at traffic signals. The use of
TRANSYT-version 3 software for the transport network system analysis
with delay data gives the fuel consumption for the transport in Karachi for

55

congested and non-congested traffic system. The two types of fuel

consumptions are used to find out the extra fuel consumption for Karachi
region due to congestion. It comes out to be nearly 37%. This gives an
idea that the urban greenhouse gas concentration due to traffic is also
proportional to urban traffic congestion.

3.3 An ansatz to model the evolution of local atmospheric temperature

fluctuations
As an application of the data model obtained in Section 3, we now
examine the evolutionary dynamics of the physical system of local
atmospheric temperature fluctuations. To be specific, does the
phenomenon of urban traffic-related greenhouse gas emission fluctuations
have a direct bearing on the evolution of local atmospheric temperature
variations? To see this, we build an ansatz by carrying out a correlation
analysis for the data structure provided by the 15-year model, which is
followed by the hypothesis testing based on the t-test. As the correlation is
defined as the strength of linear relationship between two variables, the
significance of correlation gives an idea about the type of relationship
between the variables, suggesting thereby the degree of the highly
important feature of linearity / nonlinearity. Exploiting the result of such
an analysis, we do a regression modelling, for further analysis.
The computed correlation between the two variables of greenhouse
gas concentrations and local temperatures comes out to be r = 0.468,

56

which is statistically significant at 10% level. Thus there are strong

reasons to suspect that there is a direct relationship between the two
variables. On the strength of this, we next attempt an investigation into
model construction of the dynamics of temperature fluctuations. For this,
we choose the urban greenhouse gas emission fluctuations as the predictor
technique should not be applicable here because of a large probability of
the response parameter temperature. Clearly, the classical regression
method can not be applied here because of presence of errors in the
predictor values. To circumvent this, we invoke the principles behind the
current approach of generalised linear modelling, which takes cognizance
of this kind of difficulty.
Thus we assume that the local temperature fluctuation, T, is a
function of mean annual urban traffic-related greenhouse emission
fluctuation, C, so that our ansatz can be cast in the form

T = o + C,
B

(3.5)

the s being as usual the regression model coefficients. Subjecting the 15year data model constructed earlier to the regression procedure, the ansatz
for the response variable T in terms of the predictor C turns out to be

T = (258.69 1.452) + (0.01025 0.0053) C,

57

(3.6)

the standard errors being shown along with the corresponding estimates.
For diagnostic checks of the model, we employ the concept of deviance
residuals, a measure of the difference between the log likelihood of the
fitted model and that of the saturated model. Here saturated model means
the model with fitted values equal to the observed data, so that it has
maximum achievable log likelihood. To compute the deviance residuals,
we take the degrees of freedom as 12, without any loss of generality. Then
the normal QQ-plot (see Fig. 3.4) i.e. the graph of deviance residuals,
which has normal distribution N(0, 4.33), versus quantiles of standard
normal yields

deviance residual = 51.05.

(3.7)

In this model development procedure we used the values of temperature as

integers, so we have multiplied the actual temperatures by 10. Thus we see
that the value of the deviance residual is highly encouraging (about 5).
There next arises the problem of model validation. The goodnessof-fit test of a generalised linear model is also based on deviance.
Therefore, taking degrees of freedom as 12, the likelihood ratio test yields

p-value = 9.13107
P

(3.8)

i.e. the p-value is less than 5%. In other words, the test shows that the
model for T given by the equation (3.6) is statistically significant.
58

Now what is the physics behind the above mathematics? As is well

known, regression and correlation are highly related. As such, it appears
useful to look into the so-called coefficient of determination, R2, for our
P

model (3.6):
R2 = 1
P

deviance
= 0.2068
null deviance

Adj. R2 = R2
P

2
= 0.1757,
null deviance

(3.9)

(3.10)

where
deviance =

( y i y i )2 ,
i =1

null deviance =

( y i y )2 ,

(3.11)

i =1

y = y

y being the model value of temperature. In other words, the model

explains about one-fifth of the total variance in local temperature
fluctuations solely from the contributions from the traffic-related
greenhouse gas emissions. Urbanization and modifications to the local
environment can affect the tails of urban air temperature distributions
[160]. As is shown more vividly by the graphical representations in Figure
3.5, this result compares well with the observed local temperature
variability. However, one needs to enlarge the sample size of urban

59

greenhouse gas emissions in order to use the model for a long term
forecast. In other words, the present model is a function of sample size.
Again, some contributions to local temperature fluctuations are
clearly expected from emissions due to other sources, principally the
industrial one [79]. However, as our preliminary calculations show, the
major source of local temperature build-up in urban centres occurs due
mainly to traffic volume, congestion, the urban structure (urban heat
island), and due to the global feedback effect (to be discussed in
Chapter4). Thus the above the model provides an empirical formulation of
local temperature variability in the context of contemporary global
warming.
Global climate change as a consequence of anthropogenic changes
or forcings in the composition and structure of the atmosphere poses
scientific questions of a nature and interdisciplinary scope that are
unprecedented. Uncertainties in the climate forecast are large and thus far
have hampered the establishment of a clear world plan for preventing or
mitigating against unacceptable effects. The forecast of global / regional
and local climate changes depends on the development of a sound
understanding of the factors that change the global heat balance and thus
influence the climate [33]. Viewed in this larger perspective, both the data
model development, made in Sections 2 and 3, and its exploitation for
building an empirical model of local temperature variability, undertaken in
Section 3, gain further in significance. As discussed in Chapter 1 and also

60

clear from above discussion, the local temperature fluctuation is in fact a

result of many local and global forcing factors, therefore, Chapter 4 gives
a detailed analysis of both local and global observed temperature
fluctuations dynamics as well as their interrelationships.

61

Chapter 4

Local and Global Temperature Fluctuation Dynamics and Their

Mutual Relationship

The climatic signature of global warming is both local and global. The
forcing by increasing greenhouse gases is global, so there is clearly a
global component to the climatic signature. But there is also a local
climatic signature because of the interaction of local topography with
nonlinear processes [57]. Recognizing this, the climate impacts
community has developed a variety of methods for downscaling global
model projections of climatic change. These methods include regional
climate modeling, high-resolution time slice, stretched grid, statistical
downscaling, and physically based downscaling. Regional climate models
provide high-resolution climate simulations for selected regions [108,
203]. However, the statistical analysis of temperature time series using
statistical models is important, at least as a complement to the physical
models [59].
This chapter deals with the time series analysis of the temperature
fluctuations phenomena to look into the dynamics of these physical
processes. We wish to establish the criteria for developing a model in
order to describe net impact of these physical processes. At the end of this
chapter we will establish Bayesian regression between the local and global

62

temperatures after performing correlation analysis. But before going into

the details of these analyses, we first discuss briefly the mechanism of
climate variability and uncertainties of methods.

4.1

Mechanisms of climate variability and uncertainties of

methods

Global climate change as a consequence of anthropogenic changes in the

chemical composition of the atmosphere poses scientific questions of a
nature and interdisciplinary scope that are unprecedented. Interest in
climate change has increased over the last 30 years due largely to global
predictions associated with the greenhouse effect, which appear to lead to
a substantial increase in planetary temperature [41]. Implications of such
results have led many scientists to examine climatic records from different
regions of the world in order to understand temperature behavior.
Some have suggested that the shrinking ice lakes in the Andes
(South America) are a consequence of global warming [150].
Uncertainties in the climate forecast are large and thus far have hampered
the establishment of a clear world plan for preventing or mitigating against
unacceptable effects. The forecast of global and regional climate changes
depends on the development of a sound understanding of the factors that
change the global heat balance and thus influence the climate [56].
Changes in heat balance due to anthropogenic or externally imposed
changes in the chemical composition of atmosphere are referred to as
forcings measured in watts per square meter (W m2). While the
P

63

uncertainties in the global mean greenhouse-gas forcing are not negligible

( 15%), uncertainties in forcings by changes in the atmospheric aerosols
and in clouds are much larger, and in some cases even include uncertainty
in the sign of the forcing [183]. Reductionist science, with its
compartmentalized disciplines, has not coped effectively with the problem
of aerosols and clouds, largely because of a need for simultaneous
consideration of chemical processes, chemical properties, physical
properties and a wide variety of physical processes and consequences. In
the case of natural aerosols and their effects on clouds it is even necessary
to include studies of microbiology and biochemistry [1, 33].
As far as the uncertainties in the model are concerned one may
observe that following types of processes would cause further increase in
CO2 concentration:
B

(1) a higher sea water temperature gives less CO2 absorption in sea water;
B

with higher polar temperatures there will be a smaller ocean circulation

and decreasing CO2 concentration; a faster decay of organic materials
B

will give more CO2 and CH4.

B

(2) More CO2 would lead to an increased growth of plants, which may
B

lower the surface albedo, as.

B

(3) The lapse rate

T
for humid air would decrease.
z

(4) Increase in temperature would lead to an increase in algae growth in

waters, especially in the oceans. They

could

photosynthesis and reduce CO2 concentration.

B

64

use

CO2
B

for

(5) One could imagine that more UV-radiation from continuing ozone
would destroy plankton in the upper ocean, thereby diminishing their
capacity for CO2 absorption and thus reinforcing GW [181].
B

(6) Time-delay: because it takes some time to heat up the oceans because
of their heat capacity, which originates in the fact that the top layer of
the oceans (a few hundred meters) circulates and distributes its heat
energy. The time lag comes out to be 50-100 years.
(7) In GCM (general circulation

model) grid points are defined

horizontally and vertically. Many phenomenological parameters are

required to represent motions on sub-grid scales and details of the
atmosphere-ocean interaction. The careful change of parameters in
controlled laboratory experiments is not possible in nature.
(8) The fact that most models lead to similar results may mean that the
models resemble each other rather than representing nature.
(9) Weather and climate are determined by the conditions of a film of a
gas around the earth. Because of the complex chemical and / or
physical processes, the exact conditions of the gas-film is almost
impossible to be known. Hence there are large uncertainties in the
predicted effects on global temperature.
Therefore, we may say that there are uncertainties involved in
actual local and global warming prediction.
4.1.2. Global and local temperature data
In this thesis we used the data sets of global and local temperature series
from the following sources:

65

1. www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature;series taveg1.dat
2. Pakistan Meteorological Department, Karachi, Pakistan
Next, we define our model selection criteria for the time series
analysis of temperature variations.

4.2

Criteria for developing a model in order to describe a physical

system

An observed signal, presumed to be sampled or intrinsically discrete (e.g.,

temperature time series), is treated as a stochastic process which, if
Gaussian, may be characterized within the framework of second order
statistics, namely, covariane function or spectrum density function. We
shall develop a model building criterion for time series. We need to
distinguish between a particular observed time series, called a realization,
and the process or model (in effect, a set of assumptions, able to simulate
data or some interesting structural property of data) which is presumed to
have generated the realization. In classical statistics, we try to make
inferences from a sample to a population whereas, in time series analysis,
we try to make inferences from a realization of the process, which
generated it.

4.2.1

Time series as a stochastic process

The basic idea of a time series is a very simple one it is a record of

the values of any fluctuating quantity measured at different points of time.

66

The common feature of all records which fall within the domain of time
series analysis is that they are influenced, at least in part, by sources of
random variation. Thus if we wish to explain a particular pattern of
fluctuations in a series we need to construct a mathematical description of
the data i.e., a model which explains both the deterministic and random
features of the series. Symbolically it can be written as
y t = Tt + S t + t
B

(4.1)
B

where yt denotes the value of the series recorded at a discrete set of

B

equally spaced time points t, Tt denotes the trend describing the long term
B

behaviour of the series, St the seasonal component describing, e.g., the

B

variations within a cycle of one years duration, and t the error term
B

describing the essentially random fluctuations of the series about the trend
and seasonal components [153, 210].
However, the real-life actual system is an object of a different kind
than our mathematical models. In a sense, there is an impenetrable but
transparent screen between our world of mathematical description and the
real world. We can look through this window and compare certain aspects
of the physical system with its mathematical description, but we can never
establish any exact connection between them. The most frequently used
approaches to time series model building assume that the data under study
are generated from a linear Gaussian stochastic process [26]. One of the
reasons for this popularity is that linear Gaussian models provide a
number of appealing properties, such as physical interpretations,

67

frequency domain analysis, asymptotic results, statistical inference, and

many others that nonlinear models still fail to produce consistently [64,
189]. Despite those advantages, it is well known that real-life systems are
usually nonlinear, and certain features, such as limit-cycles, asymmetry,
amplitude-dependent frequency responses, jump phenomena, and chaos
cant be correctly captured by linear statistical models. Over recent years,
several nonlinear time series models have been proposed both in classical
econometrics [194, 63] and in machine learning theory [220]. One model
that has found a large number of successful applications is the threshold
autoregressive model (TAR), proposed by Tong (1978) and Tong and Lim
(1980). Singular spectrum analysis is also applied to climatological time
series [200].
Here we first find the long-range dependence of temperature data
with the help of Hurst exponent [89, 190], H.

4.2.2

Measures of Long Range dependence with reference to

temperature data and Hurst Exponent

As also discussed in Chapter1, climate is often determined by natural

processes and is ensemble of states visited by the Earth climate system
during a few decades [132]. Also, climate parameters remain in dynamic
equilibrium [27]. Moreover, the dynamics of the climate system are
chaotic [209] suggesting that there may be some degree of non-linearity in
the overall dynamics. It is also clear from Loess plot (It is one of the

68

classical methods that can be used to get first hand knowledge about the
linearity of the phenomenon under study) [86] of global temperature
fluctuation data in Figure 4.1. Therefore, in this section we examine
piecewise linear trends in the global temperature fluctuation data from
1860 to 2003. However, persistency (movement of trajectories in the
direction of time series) or anti-persistency (tendency of trajectories to
return to the point from which it came and thus suppressing diffusion) of
the warming data set is checked first [180].
Persistency of important climatological informations can be
obtained separating scale invariant temperature series according to the
growing rate of the rescaled range of their trajectories [23]. Hurst initiated
the rescaled range studies for natural time series and started to characterize
its growing rate by the exponent H, 0 < H < 1. Thus, the value of H (less
or more than 0.5) determines the long-range behavior of the time series.
Temperature series also show that cooling and warming is scale dependent
[172]. For the case of global temperature series, we therefore, split the
temperature series into three regimes [1860-1914, 1915-1954, 1955-1999]
of almost half a century length to make it scale invariant. The first regime
shows some degree of negative trend whereas the last regime reveals
significant positive trend containing the historic warmest decade of
nineties (see Figs. 4.2 4.4).
Spectral density p( f ) for a scale invariant process holds power-law
behavior in considerable frequency scale [39-40, 115] as given by (1).

69

p( f ) f
P

(4.2)

Estimated from (4.2) was used to compute Hurst exponent, H, using the
following relationship [118].
=2H+1

(4.3)

By taking log of equation (4.2) we obtain a straight line giving as slope.

This method of long memory estimation is better than the traditionally
used periodogram estimator [119]. A computer program coded in
Mathematica [87] was used to estimate . Table 4.1 gives the values of
Hurst exponent, H, for the global and local (to be discussed in the next
Section) temperature series data. As the method requires data size in
power of 2 so we used 512 months data in the three regimes starting from
1860, 1915, and 1955.
The values of Hurst exponent in the first and second regimes
reveal that anti-persistency is present in the two regimes, suggesting that
there is possibility of turning back of temperature fluctuations to the
natural point of temperature fluctuations dynamics within few decades or
so. Whereas, presence of persistency (Hurst exponent, H = 0.54) in global
temperature fluctuations during 1955-1999 indicates an overall increase in
the temperature series in future as it has had an increasing tendency in the
past, a property of persistency [161]. Therefore, it seems that it might take
several thousand of years for temperature to come back to its natural point
provided the current emission rate of greenhouse gases persists. Moreover,
the temperature record during 1860-1914 shows a significant negative
trend, and positive trend has been observed in temperature record during
1955-1999. Table 4.2 gives the estimated trend results.

70

The second regime is in fact a transition period. In this period the

physical system actually changes its phase from negative to positive trend.
In order to check the appropriateness of the linear trend during 1955-1999,
where global warming signal starts to become significant, a second order
trend given by (4.4) was fitted.

g(t) = a + b t + c t
P

2
P

(4.4)

The values of trend parameters are given in Table 4.3. The temperature
data set from 2000 to 2003 was used for cross validation [93]. The cross
validation depending on mean absolute deviation of the two trends (see
Table 4.4) reveal that the quadratic trend is not only suitable for short term
forecast, but it can also represent the future global warming fluctuation in
the twenty first century, presence of persistency during 1955-1999 actually
helps us in understanding the possible global temperature trend behavior
in near and distant future. Similar temperature trend in the twenty first
century can also be observed in Figure 9-11 of [128]. To further explore
the global warming phenomenon we study Martingales and Markov
processes.
4.2.3

Global warming as Martingales and Markov processes

As we have seen in Chapter 1, it would be too simplistic not to attach

weight to the issue of the quantum of human involvement in the
degradation of earth's climate, in particular in global warming. This

71

section thus develops a model to serve as a guide in the assessment of

contributions to the global warming. We explore global warming data as
stochastic processes. Like other time series global warming time series
may also be written in simple form as (similar to equation (4.1) without
seasonal component):

Yi = g(ti) + Xi
B

(4.5)
B

Where g(ti) is trend (linear or nonlinear), and Xi is error process (with

B

stationary and short-range dependence, [70]). However, in the study of

stochastic processes the most fundamental concepts are the Markov and
the Martingale property. There are some processes, which are both
Markov and Martingale processes

[98]. Martingale theory classifies

observed time series according to the way they trend. A stochastic

process behaves like a martingale if its trajectories display no discernible
trends or periodicities. A process that, on the average, increases is called a
submartingale. The term supermartingale represents processes that, on the
average, decline. We say that a process { St, t [0, ]} is a martingale
B

with respect to the family of information sets I, and with respect to the
probability P, if, for all t > 0,
1. St is known, given It. (St is It adapted)
B

2. Unconditional forecasts are finite:

E | St | <
B

3. And if
72

E [ S T ] = St, for all t < T,

B

with probability 1. The best forecast of unobserved future values is the last
observation on St, a property of Markov process. According to DoobB

Meyers Theorem, any detrended time series can be studied as martingales

[139]. We have already found significant trends in the three sub-series of
temperature (see Table 4.2). The 2normality test for three detrended subP

series show that they are normally distributed. Table 2 also shows that the
first regime of temperature seems to be a supermartingale (decreasing
trend as slope is negative), whereas the other two sub-series demonstrate
submartingale (increasing trends as slopes are positive) behavior. Now, we
examine the partial autocorrelation functions (PACF) of the three
detrended series to observe the underlying physical process [62]. Before
we go for detailed analysis of underlying physical processes, which
govern the fluctuating behavior of global warming, we briefly describe
Markov process.

4.2.3.1. Markov process: In Markov processes the state of the system at

any time t is simply the value of the process at that time [134]. A Markov
chain is conceptually one of the simplest probabilistic models and has
found considerable application in meteorology. We consider a stochastic
process {Jn : n = 1,2, L} with s states. The Jn -process is said to be a first
B

order Markov chain if

73

Pr{ Jn+1 = j|J1 = i1, L, Jn1 = in1, Jn = i} = Pr{ Jn+1 = j|Jn = i}

B

(4.6)

For all i1, L, in1, i, j, and for n = 1,2, L. This condition (4.6) is referred
B

to as the Markovian property. This property may also be extended to a

more general stochastic process {Xn : n = 1,2, L}, where Xn is a realB

valued random variable. In this case the Markovian property can be

expressed as

Pr{ Xn+1 y|X1 = x1, L, Xn1 = xn1, Xn = x}= Pr{ Xn+1 y|Xn = x }.
B

(4.7)

One example of a Markov process is called random walk and consists of a

sequence of random variables {Xi : i = 1,2, L} with
B

Xi+1 = Xi + i + 1, i = 1,2, L
B

(4.8)

here the is are independent identically distributed (iid) random variables

B

with zero expected value. If = 1, then eq. (4.8) gives a random walk
structure.

X t X t k

k = t = k +n1

X t2 k
t = k +1

74

(4.9)

Now, the autocorrelation function (ACF) analysis (between Xt and

B

Xtk (at lag k) obtained using relation given by equation (4.9)) allows
B

identifying and quantifying data structures such as short or long memory

effects, and periodicities, etc. The detected structures may be associated
with a physical phenomenon such as an increase in the emission intensity
and temperature fluctuation. Alternatively, when the autocorrelation
becomes close to zero, it means that there is a random process occurring
with no persistent or regularly reoccurring structures. To further see the
strength of influence of these parameters we analyse the partial
autocorrelation function (PACF). The information revealed from this
analysis shows about particular lags contribution in the process evolution
as compared to other lag values [153]. On the basis of ACF and PACF
structure it is possible to create parametric mathematical models that are
able to simulate a data generating process and extrapolate the time series
to the future periods.
So a careful study of graphs of PACF of the three detrended series
clearly suggest us for further analysis of the detrended series. Therefore,
we test for different orders of Markov processes [45]. Autocorrelations up
to lag 10 are included in the graphs. A very high positive correlation at lag
one in Fig. 4.5 shows that the underlying physical process is Markov
(Autoregressive (AR)-1) of order 1. At other lags, the correlations are
weak. Similarly, the study of Figures 4.6, and 4.7 demonstrate that the

75

underlying physical processes for the second and third regimes are
Markov (AR-3) of order 3, and Markov (AR-2) of order 2 respectively.
The estimated parameters of all Markov models are given in Table 4.5.
A test is needed to get an idea about adequacy of the fitted models. It has
been shown [26] that for a satisfactory model, the variable
K

ra2 (k ) ,

Q=N

k =1

where ra(k) are estimated autocorrelations for the residuals ai, have 2
B

distribution with K-p-q degrees of freedom. Here, N = n 1 (in our case)

P

equals to the amount of initial data used in each regime for the model
fitting. So, on the basis of Q-statistic ( STATISTICA 5.5 , [182]), we can
say that the first regime, which is in fact natural fluctuations of
temperature unaffected by anthropogenic factor, is represented by a first
order Markov process (see equation (4.10)).

Similarly, the analysis of the second and the third regimes temperature
fluctuations show to be governed by Markov processes of order 3 and
order 2 represented by equations (4.11) and (4.12).

Y1i = g1(ti) + Markov-order 1 + e1i

B

Y2i = g2(ti) + Markov-order 3 + e2i

(4.10)

Y3i = g3(ti) + Markov-order 2 + e3i

B

76

(4.11)

(4.12)

where g1(ti) and g2(ti) are linear trends during the first two regimes, given
B

in Table 2, and g3(ti) is quadratic trend tabulated in Table 4.3. Markov

B

processes are given by equations (4.13), (4.14), and (4.15).

Markov-order 1 = f ( Yi 1 ) = a1 Yi 1
B

(4.13)

Markov-order 2 = f ( Yi 1, Yi 2 ) = a1 Yi 1 + a2
B

Markov-order 3 = f ( Yi 1, Yi 2 , Yi 3 ) = a1 Yi 1 + a2
B

(4.14)

Yi 2

Yi 2

+ a3 Yi 3
B

The error terms are approximately normally distributed with

(4.15)

e1i N
B

(0, 0.0229), e2i N (0, 0.0138), and e3i N (0, 0.0072) at 95% level. The
B

last regime temperature data set was detrended twice. One for the case of
linear trend and one for the quadratic trend. Both detrended series gave the
same second order Markov process. The PACF of residuals (see Figs.
4.8 - 4.10) also demonstrate these facts.
PACF of residuals for Markov 3 model is almost perfect. PACF of
residuals for Markov 2 model shows a weak correlation at lag 8. Similarly
two weak correlations at lags 4 and 10 can be observed in case of Markov
1 model. We can say that overall fit is appropriate.
Figures 4.11, and 4.12 gives the observed values with proposed
long-term trend. The proposed trend seems to be very much close to the
temperature fluctuation values of twenty first century given by IPCC
reports.
77

4.3

Problem of interconnection between local and global warming

Global climate historical experiments using anthropogenic and natural

forcings have been performed previously showing model-based evidence
that

both

natural

and

anthropogenic

forcings

made

significant

contributions to early twentieth-century surface temperature changes.

These studies also reveal that anthropogenic forcings are the dominant
cause of the warming in the second half of the twentieth century [28, 123,
184, 193].
Global warming has been studied for existence of possible causes
of twentieth-century temperature change near the earths surface [208,
213]. Some authors also studied the northern hemisphere temperature data
and southern hemisphere temperature data as bivariate analysis for
anthropogenic trend detection [178]. Recent research on Urban Heat
Islands (UHIs) has lead to better description of urban climate
modifications [105, 141, 170], development of mathematical models of
urban climate change [2, 32, 129, 136] and comparison of causes for urban
climate modifications based on model simulation [109, 148, 168]. The
dominant causes for UHIs identified so far include, heat trapping by urban
geometry, alterations to urban thermal properties, changes in vegetation
cover and man-made (anthropogenic) heat input [47]. In addition to that, it
has been shown that there is significant connection between the regional
annual mean temperature and the annual UHI strength [31]. Moreover, the
regional annual mean temperatures are affected by global annual mean

78

temperature [103]. It is well known that megacities tend to be hotter than

the surrounding countryside and scientist see them foreshadowing the
great environmental upheavals likely to follow from global warming
[192]. It is therefore, important to analyse the stochastic structure of both
local (urban) and global annual mean temperatures to understand any
similarity in their dynamics. We shall be mainly concerned with the last
point of view.
The local and global temperature fluctuations are first examined
graphically for distributive properties and correlations. After that, these
fluctuations are modeled as Markov processes, finally, a Bayesian
regression of the local and global temperature fluctuations is established.

4.3.1

Distributive and correlation properties of local and global

temperature fluctuations

The global temperature fluctuations for the most recent half-century are
more accurate as compared to earlier observations [50]. In addition to this,
environmental data sets are not generally available or frequently for many
countries in the Middle East and Arid Asia Region for a range of social
and physical reasons [205]. Therefore, we use local and global
temperature data from 1961 to 2003 for comparative analysis in this
Section. Some scientists have performed statistical distributions analyses
for local and global sea surface wind speeds [133]. Similarly, correlation
analysis has been done for local and global solar radiation fluxes in an

79

attempt to establish relationships between fluxes and urban environmental

parameters [112]. Moreover, we know that the study of statistical
distributions of climatic parameters generally gives more insights of the
physical processes as environmental parameters in general, show right
skewed tails.
This Section will give distributive and correlations properties of
both local and global warming. The correlations matrix between local and
global monthly temperature fluctuations reveal that most of the monthly
data sets of local and global warming have significant correlations. A
further analysis of monthly data sets show that distributions of data are, in
general, right skewed (see Fig 4.13).
To further explore these phenomena we study Markov processes.

4.3.2

Global and local warming as Markov processes

Global temperature fluctuations (in three different regimes) have been

modeled with Markov processes in Section 4.2.3. If scientific literature is
explored, we find that real-world problem involving random processes can
be modeled with Markov chains [142]. Again, randomness is often an
appropriate model for systems of high complexity, such as are often found
in environmental science. Even psychological theory can also be
represented as Markov process [207]. This section thus applies Markov
models to serve as a guide in the study of possible relationship between
the local and global warming phenomena. We have already shown that
global warming data of second half of the last century (1955-1999) follow
80

Markov process of order 2. In this Section we try to explore the local

warming phenomenon in terms of Markov process. Now, we examine the
Partial Autocorrelation Functions (PACF) of local and global series to
observe the underlying physical processes generating the data.
A careful study of graphs of PACF of the series clearly suggests us
to test for Markov processes to examine the underlying phenomena.
Autocorrelations up to lag 10 are included in the graphs. A very high
positive correlation at lag 1 can be seen (see Figs. 4.14, and 4.15) and a
weak correlation at lag 2. At other lags correlations are weak. Therefore,
Markov (AR-2) model of order 2 seems to be adequate. The estimated
parameters of all Markov models are given in Table 4.6. Figure 4.16
shows a weak correlation at lag 8 also showing some local and/or regional
impact on local warming.
Test of adequacy of the fitted models is also performed here. So,
on the basis of Q-statistic (implemented in STATISTICA 5.5), we can say
that the local and global temperature fluctuations are governed by Markov
process of order 2 represented by equations (4.16) and (4.17) (similar to
equation (4.14) but with linear trend as the local temperature fluctuations
follow a linear trend).
Y1i = g1(ti) + Markov-order 2 + e1i
B

Y2i = g2(ti) + Markov-order 2 + e2i

B

81

(4.16)

(4.17)

where g1(ti) and g2(ti) are linear trends for local and global
B

temperature fluctuations. The error terms are approximately normally

distributed with e1i N (0, 0.086) and e2i N (0, 0.079) at 95% level.
B

Both local and global series give the same second order Markov
process.

The PACF of residuals (see Figs. 4.16, and 4.17) also

demonstrate these facts. As discussed above, in case of local temperature,

PACF of residuals for Markov 2 model shows a weak correlation at lag 8.
Similarly, in case of global temperature, PACF of residuals for Markov 2
model shows a very weak correlation at lag 4. We can say that overall fit
is appropriate.
To establish possible relationship between the local and global
temperature fluctuations, we study the Bayes regression in the next
section.

4.3.3

Bayesian regression analysis of local and global temperatures

Existence of Markov process in both local and global temperature fluctuations

suggests that there might be some impact of global temperature on local
temperature fluctuations. Also annual temperature series of both local and
global temperature fluctuations are less deviated from normality as compared
to monthly series, therefore, in this Section we explore the relationship
between annual series of temperature fluctuations. Moreover, the correlation
between local and global annual temperatures ( = 0.72, p-value < 0.05)

82

shows that there are strong reasons to believe that there is a direct relationship
between the two temperatures. The hypothesis testing using t-test shows that
the correlation is significant at 5% level. As we have already discussed in
Section 3 that environmental parameters generally deviate from normal
behavior suggesting us to see for some robust techniques for tasting presence
of any possible relationship. One of the robust techniques is Bayesian
approach. Bayesian method has had been utilized by scientists in
climatological parameters analysis [159, 221].
In Bayesian Regression we are interested in the conditional
distribution of y (the dependent variable), given x

(the independent

variable), parameterized as p (y|, x), under a model in which the n

observations (x, y)i are exchangeable [54].
B

We define:
Independent Variable: = local temperature
Dependent Variable: = global temperature
Model:

E(yi|, X) = 1xi1 + L +k xi
B

(4.18)

The obtained parameters (using Minitab [7]) are given below.

Parameter values with 95% confidence interval are:
o :

(-7.58099) (1.96 1.1649875)

(0.292985) (1.96 0.0437982)

Now, a careful look at the 95% prediction graph (see Fig. 4.18) for this
relationship suggests that the obtained Bayesian model between the local

83

and global temperatures seems to be adequate at least for the short term
prediction of global temperature fluctuation using local temperature
fluctuation information.
Concluding this chapter we may say that if we do not try to halt the
overheating of the earth, our life will certainly be changed and there is a
long list of possible catastrophes, especially if there is rapid, significant
global warming. Some of the predicted environmental dangers are
unprecedented in their seriousness and scope, at least throughout human
history. The problem of understanding of persistency and anti- persistency
is also important in relation to global warming fluctuation. It is found that
the first two regimes (in case of global warming) show antipersistency
while the third regime is persistent. Our analysis demonstrate that the
degree of nonlinearity in global warming fluctuation is gradually
increasing in the second half of the last century (that is, in the last regime).
In other words acceleration is present in this evolutionary system. So, a
second order trend becomes necessary to look into the possible future
temperature behavior. Reliable quantitative modeling is necessary for any
forecast, and understanding of the dynamics of global warming. Our
analyses provokes that if it is assured that the environment is free from
anthropogenic effects, the underlying physical process would be a Markov
process of order 1 provided a data set of size of, more or less, half a
century is taken. Martingale theory also helped in classifying the observed
time series according to the way they trend. The approach presented here

84

could be improved by introducing non-linear time series methods giving

more insights of the evolutionary process.
It has also been shown that to characterize and quantify both the
magnitude and relationship of an urban temperature fluctuation with the
global temperature fluctuation, the Markov processes are helpful.
Existence of Markov processes in both local and global temperature
fluctuation, and presence of statistically significant correlations between
the two phenomena seem to indicate the feedback effect of global
warming on local warming. Statistically significant Bayesian regression
between annual local and global temperature fluctuations is also important
in indicating the future global temperature fluctuation with the help of
local temperature fluctuation.
Methods and techniques currently being developed to study local
phenomena will provide an increase in the skills and knowledge necessary
to deal with possible future global climate change. In the future, urban
climate change will be of importance to a larger and larger number of the
world's residents. Larger cities will likely accentuate the climatic effects,
especially if the urban growth is unsupervised and occurs without careful
planning. Many of these cities are growing to sizes never before
encountered, thus making it prudent to closely watch what effects such
size may produce. The knowledge and understanding of such scientific
facts about these important climatic factors and their relationships to each
other would help us in forecasting the future direction of these dynamics,

85

which will, in turn, help in mitigation of global warming consequences in

future.
Chapter 5 will now summarize this thesis and will also discuss
some open questions related to local and global warming phenomena.

86

Chapter 5
Summary and Conclusions

5.1 Recapitulation of results

As was demonstrated in Chapter 1, an assessment of the impact of
anthropogenic activities on global climate change more definitive than
undertaken hitherto is an important problem in contemporary terrestrial
atmospheric physics. As shown there, in any such assessment, a
mathematical modelling of the involved phenomena as physical processes
is more natural and kind of governing factor compared with the usual
researches, for instance, on simulation or scenario construction and fixing
the level of forcing of climate change via aerosol chemistry studies.
Another setback of current research attempts lies in the fact that the
problem of greenhouse gas emissions from urbanization, in particular from
megacity traffic flows, does not seem to have been considered as a
potential source of changes in the global heat balance, in addition to the
industrial activity. As was also spelled out in Chapter 1, an investigation
of the greenhouse gas problem is also often beset with the missing data
problem, this being especially true for urban regions in the developing
countries like Pakistan where little work seems to have been undertaken
on the lines suggested above.
As such, in Chapter 2 an imputation scheme for general use has
been formulated and employed to develop a data model from the four

87

road-side data samples for nine stations in Karachi Region spanning a

period 1969 to 1983 to study the influence of urban traffic emissions on
the global warming signal. Thus, using appropriate adequacy test etc., it is
first shown there that the traffic-related greenhouse gas concentration for
the megacity set-up of the mentioned region obeys gamma and lognormal
distributions, except the normal case for 1969. Next the non-classical
bootstrap (with new RNG) resampling technique is applied to the result of
quadratic, exponential, and logarithmic regression models built on the
basis of the robust technique of mean absolute deviation. The mean
annual, , of the greenhouse gas concentration for the constructed 15-year
model thus computed nonparametrically and having a sample size of 108
is further validated via its comparison with the result of estimation and
testing based on the approximate MLE technique and the p-value theory.
Next, to resolve the problem of computing the long-term behaviour of the
fluctuations of emissions beyond 1983, a linear regression is performed
and compared for validation with a generalised linear regression based on
exact maximum likelihood estimation technique. However, this approach
leaves out the problem of taking into account the important urban structure
parameters like city population and total traffic volume, which are directly
proportional to the congestion problem. Thus it should be checked
whether the long-term trend just obtained agrees with the result, which
would be got when the mentioned structure parameters are explicitly
included in the modelling.

88

It is remarkable that the long-term trend provided by the Ridge

approach agrees reasonably well with the earlier result, the agreement
implying that the time variation considered earlier incorporates the effect
of factors like city population and total traffic volume. As to the reason
behind an application of the Ridge methodology to modelling, it is called
for because the two predictors happen to be highly correlated in which
case the standard multiple regression would fail.
As done in Chapter 3, an extension of the time series constructed
in Chapter 2 is carried out to take into account the problem of appropriate
sample size. Thus it is first shown via an EDA that the distributions
obeyed by the traffic congestion data are gamma and lognormal, in
conformity with the findings in Chapter 2, and this is used to establish a
linear relationship between traffic delay times and extra fuel consumption
for the Karachi Region. Hence, treating the first result obtained above viz.
37% enhancement in fuel consumption due to congestion in an urban
region like Karachi as an indicator of an increase in local greenhouse gas
emissions.
Next, using the 27-year data model of the fluctuations of urban
traffic-related atmospheric greenhouse emissions just obtained, a
generalised linear regression based on exact MLE provides an empirical
model for the local atmospheric temperature fluctuations. The resulting
increase in temperature fluctuations is in conformity with the enhancement
in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration predicted by congestion data

89

modelling carried earlier.

Chapter 4, finally, investigated the various involved phenomena as
physical processes after discussing the model uncertainties. Thus it carries
out a time series analysis of (first estimating the Hurst exponent (long
range dependence) with reference to temperature data) the local
atmospheric temperature variation, and the global temperature variability.
Global warming, in three different temperature regimes, was analysed as
Martingales and Markov processes. The statistical tests validated the
Markov processes to be the appropriate underlying processes. The trend of
global warming in the second half of the last century demonstrated that the
degree of nonlinearity in global warming fluctuation was gradually
increasing, showing the presence of acceleration in the evolutionary
system. Although the increasing trend in the local temperature fluctuation
was low as compared to global one, but there existed some similarity in
the underlying evolutionary processes (following Markov process of order
2). Next it carried out correlation analysis of the local versus global
temperature series and employed the results to construct a Bayesian
regression model between local and global temperatures. Correlation
between local and global annual temperatures turned out to be 0.72.

5.2

Outlook flowing from the work undertaken here

[1] As is borne out by the IPCC observations, data collection is sparse for
many countries in the Middle East and Arid Asia region, for a range of

90

social and physical reasons. This is, thus, another serious setback
thwarting efforts to obtain reliable models of climate change in the region
and analysis of their possible impacts.
Thus Chapter 2 investigates the variability of traffic emissions
focusing on the Karachi Region, where both the human population and
traffic flow (rather than the pressure of industry) are growing rapidly,
thereby seriously threatening local environment and ecology. We attempt
to model the fluctuation arising from traffic flow by constructing a data
model with zonal values of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration
from the re-analyses of the PCSIR monitor of various sites of Karachi
Region for real-time data, used in conjunction with a new hybrid pseudorandom number simulator for missing data problem related to the roadside
greenhouse gas pollution. Validation and analysis of the simulated secular
time series is important in that it reflects site-specific peculiarities of the
investigated process and so is particularly capable of catching an
information concerning the variability on annual to decadal and interdecadal time scales.
In particular, introducing an exploratory analysis (both parametric
and nonparametric) to investigate population parameters, the constructed
time series leads to the result that the pollution phenomenon evinces a
hybrid structure consisting of lognormal and gamma distributions.

91

[2] Again, Asian countries like China, India, Indonesia, Philippines and
Vietnam have had been working on technical options for mitigating
environmental emissions from the urban transport system [173]. However,
there does not seem to exist any work on Pakistan so far. Hence the
empirical modelling of data obtained in Chapter 2 in the form of the
resulting annual mean concentration model is the first of its kind in the
context of Pakistan. Models are also formulated for traffic volume and city
population.

[3] Moreover, a consideration of options for mitigation obviously requires

one first to look into the empirical modelling of data and quantitative
aspects of the involved source of pollution. Thus Chapter 3 studies
questions like traffic congestion, fuel consumption, and interrelationship
between urban greenhouse gases, due mainly to traffic, and the local
temperature variations.

[4] The principal result by way of Bayesian relationship between local and
global temperatures (suggested by the correlation analysis) shows that the
rate of change of global temperature may be estimated, when the local
temperature is taken as the independent variable. Similarity in underlying
evolutionary processes in both local and global demonstrates the impact of
global temperature on the local temperature (some kind of feedback
effect).

92

We may also suggest that the degree of persistence of time series

of local traffic emissions can be used as a hitherto unnoticed independent
index of the global warming process, which is significant to issues such as
the budget of the global temperature of the atmosphere earth system,
global oscillations, global coupled ocean-atmosphere oscillatory system,
large-scale climatological oscillations, global circulation, diurnal to
decadal variability in Earth's rotation, the impact of this variation on the
lengthening of days, changes in Earth's gravitational field, consequent
differential gravity of earth-moon system, mean motion of the moon,
possible Earths tidal acceleration, etc.
It seems that the impact of pollution due to traffic on local and
global temperature is large as compared to other factors, like, impact of
deforestation and pollution from power sector. So, measure of change of
local pollutions from megacities will definitely change the global
temperature distribution. It also suggests that both local and global
temperature fluctuations seem to be Markov processes.
As for the capability of the models, apart from their worth in
seasonal and / or weather forecasting, they can provide a good description
of the changing warming scenario and its seasonal variations. Further, they
provide predictions, which on the whole are reproducible.

[5] Overall, we have given two kinds of modelling approaches. Moreover,

we have used thorough going methodology of analysis, namely, we have

93

applied estimation and testing theory through out. Then, we have done full
blown model validation. Finally, we have carried out full blown data
correction, i.e., application of simulation to ensure the goodness of final
set of data to be used.
Although there are major uncertainties concerning a process as
complex as global warming, yet the modelling undertaken here has
manifold value:

* Integrated Environmental Management

* Formulation of an environmentally sound transport policy in
view of (a) concerns of WMO, UNDP, and the economic factor and (b)
vehicles, fuels, routes, and time schedules
* Improving urban / suburban transport system to improve air
quality levels urban transport system via a comparison and contrast of
synthetically generated traffic flow data and observed data
* Forecast for increasing the number of vehicles in a cosmopolitan.

5.3

Open Questions

As for open problems, we have not carried out chaotic modelling in

addition to probabilistic (consideration of distributions), statistical (focus
on statistical), and empirical (regression) because this would have made
this work too cluttered and lengthy. Also we know that chaotic modelling

94

requires lager data sets for giving useful information related to the
physical system under study.
As regards the larger scale of global environmental problem,
emissions of greenhouse gases can be cut through reducing the demand for
energy services, such reducing traffic congestion in cities. Thus, in today's
environmentally aware milieu, energy supply must not only satisfy world
needs, but must do so by utilizing best environmental practice.
Formulation of an environmentally sound transport policy (WMO, UNDP,
Economic Factor); vehicles, fuels, routes, and time schedules, (IPCC,
1995) by
- Improving urban/suburban transport system to improve air quality levels
urban transport system via a comparison and contrast of synthetically
generated traffic flow data and observed data.
Following are the Future study direction and Open Questions:
(1) Investigation of a linear correspondence between the global marine +
land-surface temperature increases (the greenhouse forcing) and the
response of global atmosphere's dynamics, global circulation.

(2) We have not carried out advanced modelling in addition to

probabilistic and statistical because this would have made this thesis too
lengthy.
We, thus, see that the problem of significant climate warming is a
collective problem for the local, regional and global communities,

95

especially for the developed segment of the world community. And what
is most significant, amid the medley of misgivings concerning the
relationship between the need for sustainable climate and socio-economic
growth, is the fact that hazards (like powerful hurricanes, devastating
coastal floods, and so on) we are facing today seem to be largely a
consequence of the industrial and other anthropogenic activities of
yesterday ones in which we chose to indulge throughout past decades
since the inception of Industrial Era in the West. Thus, a failure to evince a
sense of responsibility in environmental matters by world governments
today would of necessity land our posterity, for no fault of theirs, into
disastrous consequences tomorrow.

Other Open Questions Are:

(A) What should be optimized urban parameters?

(B) How traffic congestion is related with urban parameters?

(C) How traffic congestion should be regularly monitored?

96

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124

APPENDIX-I
Figures

(a) 1969 configuration showing a high degree of normality

1
3
6
8
20
33
48
(14)
46
33
22
14
7
3

56
6 24
6 677
7 03
7 567778889999
8 0011222222333
8 555666677778889
9 01122223344444
9 5566677778899
10 00001223334
10 55566788
11 0123344
11 6779
12 334

(b) 1975 configuration exhibiting a predominantly right-tailed structure

33
46
(13)
49
36
30
22
14
11
9
5
2

1 88888889999
2 1111111111111
2 2222222233333
2 4444444455555
2 667777
2 88888899
3 00111111
3 223
3 45
3 6667
3 888
4 11

(c) 1982 configuration evincing a moderately right-tailed structure

32
41
(14)
53
46
38
30
25
19
12
8
4

3 66667777
3 888999999
4 00000111111111
4 2222333
4 44455555
4 66666677
4 88899
5 111111
5 2222223
5 4445
5 6677
5 8999

125

(d) 1983 configuration manifesting a typical lognormal structure

1
3
6
9
19
36
45
51
(11)
46
29
23
16
11
8
3
1

31
3 33
3 444
3 677
3 8888889999
4 00001111111111111
4 222333333
4 445555
4 66666666777
4 88888889999999999
5 111111
5 2223333
5 45555
5 666
5 88888
6 11
62

Figure 2.1(a-d) Stem-and-leaf EDA for local atmospheric

greenhouse gas concentrations from megacity traffic
flow indicating the temporal evolution of the shape of
gas population distribution.

(a) 1969 configuration exhibiting an almost normal structure

33

Number of Observations

30
27
24
21
18
15
12
9
6
3
0

(b) 1975 configuration showing a highly right-tailed behaviour

39

Number of Observations

36
33
30
27
24
21
18
15
12
9
6
3
0

126

Number of Observations

(c) 1982 configuration indicating a fairly right-tailed structure

28
26
24
22
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

(d) 1983 configuration manifesting a characteristic lognormal nature

33

Number of Observations

30
27
24
21
18
15
12
9
6
3
0

Figure 2.2 (a-d) Frequency histogram EDA for atmospheric

greenhouse emissions from megacity traffic flow, confirming
the evolutionary pattern of gas population distribution from
normality to right-tailed behaviour, as suggested by the earlier
EDA.
700
600
500
400

Min-Max
25%-75%
Median value

300
200
100
0
GH-gas, 1969

GH-gas, 1982
GH-gas, 1975

GH-gas, 1983

Figure 2.3 Box-plot EDA for local atmospheric greenhouse gases

from megacity traffic flow showing an absence of extreme outliers
but frequent concentration fluctuations(higher spread) for 1982.

127

GH-gas concentration

400
340
280
220
160
100
40

Figure 2.4 Greenhouse gas concentrations, from constructed

data model, for a megacity summer exhibiting a logarithmic
long-term trend i.e. a slow growth scenario.

450

GH-gas concentration

400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50

Figure 2.5 Greenhouse gas concentrations, from constructed

data model, for megacity non-extreme months showing a
quadratic long-term trend i.e. a higher growth scenario than
the one for summer months.

128

GH-gas concentration

380
320
260
200
140
80
20

Figure 2.6 Greenhouse gas concentrations, from constructed

data model, for megacity winter, the month of February,
indicating an exponential long-term trend i.e. a very high
growth scenario than the ones for non-winter months.

(2.7)

(2.8)

Figures (2.7 & 2.8) In figure (2.7) we see that the random integers from
the LCG are lying on planes, whereas in figure (2.8) using Wolfram
integer random values and our proposed hybrid RNG, the integers are
randomly scattered..

129

0.5

455

460

465

470

475

480

-0.5

-1

Figure (2.9a) 95 % Bootstrap confidence interval for 20 bootstrap

simulations for 50 bootstrap samples using Wolfram random integer
generator (data for 1983). The average length of Confidence Interval
is 25.97.

0.5

450

455

460

465

470

475

-0.5

-1

Figure (2.9b) 95 % Bootstrap confidence interval for 20 bootstrap

simulations for 50 bootstrap samples using our hybrid random integer
generator. The average length of confidence interval is 25.42. It looks
more symmetric and compact for Confidence Interval as compared to
Figure 2.9a (data for 1983).

130

Autocorrelation

Autocorrelation Function for Wolfram defined Random Integers

1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1.0

Lag

Corr

LBQ

Lag

Corr

LBQ

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

-0.02
0.08
0.09
-0.19
-0.05
0.07
-0.01

-0.25
0.87
0.92
-1.91
-0.48
0.66
-0.10

0.06
0.86
1.75
5.75
6.02
6.55
6.56

8
9
10

0.06
-0.06
-0.07

0.63
-0.56
-0.71

7.05
7.44
8.08

10

Fig. 2.10 Autocorrelations upto 10 lags for 108 random integers from Wolfram
defined random integers. T-statistics and Ljung-Box Q statistics are also shown.

Autocorrelation

Autocorrelation Function for Random Integers from Hybrid Method

1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1.0

Lag

Corr

LBQ

Lag

Corr

LBQ

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

-0.01
-0.06
-0.02
-0.01
0.06
-0.07
-0.08

-0.11
-0.57
-0.21
-0.11
0.67
-0.73
-0.80

0.01
0.35
0.40
0.41
0.90
1.49
2.21

8
9
10

-0.14
0.02
0.06

-1.39
0.21
0.63

4.42
4.47
4.96

10

Figure 2.11 Autocorrelations upto 10 lags for 108 random integers from
proposed hybrid random integer generator. T-statistics and Ljung-Box Q
statistics show better values as compared to Wolfram. Thus, it gives more
random integers.

131

14

12

12

10

10

8
6
6
4

2
20.

40.

60.

80.

100.

20.

Figure 2.12 Histogram of 108 random integers

using Wolfram random integer values. It
seems to be less uniform for 108 random
values.

35

30

30

25

25

20

20

15

15

10

10

5
400.

600.

800.

60.

80.

100.

Figure 2.13 Histogram of 108 random integers

using our proposed RNG. It looks more
uniform as compared to Wolfram random
integer values.

35

200.

40.

1000.

Figure 2.14 Histogram of 1000 random

integers using Wolfram random integer values.
It looks less uniform for even 1000 random
integers.

132

200.

400.

600.

800.

1000.

Figure 2.15 Histogram of 1000 random

integers using our proposed random values.
It looks more uniform for 1000 random
integers.

Long Term Trend for Mean Annual Smoke Concentration

500
450
400
350
300
250
200

Ct in
(g m3)

150

100

50
Year

Years (starting from 1969)

Figure 2.16 The linear trend equation for annual smoke

concentration.

Variable VAR3 ; distribution: Lognormal

Kolmogorov-Smirnov d = .1837130, p < .05
Chi-Square: 36.62225, df = 4, p = .0000002 (df adjusted)
24
22
20
18
16
No of obs

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0.00 1.09 2.18 3.27 4.36 5.45 6.54 7.63 8.72 9.81 10.90 12.00

Expected

Category (upper limits)

Figure 3.1 Delay time distribution in Shershah area.

133

Variable DELAYS ; distribution: Gamma

Kolmogorov-Smirnov d = .0111699,
18
16
Expected

No. of observations

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1.500

5.625

9.750

13.875

18.000

Category (upper limits)

Figure 3.2 Delay time distribution in Khayaban-e-Jami area.

Distribution: Lognormal
Kolmogorov-Smirnov d = .1605805, p < .05
Chi-Square: 31.02899, df = 5, p = .0000093 (df adjusted)
22
Expected

20

No of observations

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0.100 1.092 2.083 3.075 4.067 5.058 6.050 7.042 8.033 9.025 10.01711.00012.000

Category (upper limits)

Figure 3.3 Delay time distribution in Hub-river area.

134

De vi an ce R es id ua ls

Normal QQplot of Std. Residuals

4
3
2
1
0
-1
-2
-1.5 -1 -0.5
0
0.5
Quantiles of Standard

1
1.5
Normal

Figure 3.4 Diagnostic check of normal QQ-plot of standard

residual of the local atmospheric temperature model,
constructed as a function of megacity greenhouse gas
emissions, showing a reasonably appropriate value of the
deviance residual.

C
Observed-Temperature = 25.981 + 0.014
C
Simulated-Temperature = 25.912 + 0.019
26.8
26.6
26.4
26.2
26.0
Observed

25.8

Simulated

25.6
25.4
25.2

Figure 3.5 Comparison of simulated and observed temperatures

of urban Karachi showing a reasonable agreement on a shortterm scale.

135

0.6
0.2

0.4
100

0.2

200

300

400

500

600

-0.2

-0.4

-0.2

-0.6
-0.8

-0.4
-1

25

50

75

100

125

150

Figure 4.1 Loess plot of global temperature

Figure 4. 2 Temperature during 1860-1914

0.8

0.2
0.6

100

200

300

0.4

400

-0.2

0.2

-0.4

100

200

300

400

500

-0.2

-0.6

-0.4

-0.8

Figure 4.3 Temperature during 1915-1954

Figure 4.4 Temperature during 1955-1999

Figure4.1 reveals some degree of nonlinearity in the global temperature

fluctuations data set during 1860-2003.

Figures 4.2- 4.4 show the global temperature fluctuations in the three
regimes.

136

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Detrended data 1860-1914

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 +.516

.0389

2 +.089

.0389

3 +.031

.0389

4 +.096

.0389

5 +.005

.0389

6 -.016

.0389

7 +.070

.0389

8 +.029

.0389

9 +.061

.0389

10 +.067

.0389
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

Figure 4.5 Partial Autocorrelation plot suggesting a Markov process of order 1

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Detrended data 1915-1954

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 +.572

.0456

2 +.242

.0456

3 +.142

.0456

4 -.030

.0456

5 +.034

.0456

6 +.026

.0456

7 +.054

.0456

8 +.050

.0456

9 +.054

.0456

10 +.029

.0456
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

Figure 4.6 Partial Autocorrelation plot suggesting a Markov process of order 3

137

Partial Autocorrelation Function for detrended data 1955-1999

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 +.749

.0430

2 +.256

.0430

3 -.018

.0430

4 +.066

.0430

5 +.021

.0430

6 -.042

.0430

7 +.023

.0430

8 +.010

.0430

9 -.108

.0430

10 -.041

.0430
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

Figure 4.7 Partial Autocorrelation plot suggesting a Markov process of order 2

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Residuals of Markov-3

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 +.004

.0456

2 +.002

.0456

3 +.002

.0456

4 -.056

.0456

5 -.015

.0456

6 -.026

.0456

7 -.000

.0456

8 +.015

.0456

9 +.035

.0456

10 +.032

.0456
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

Figure 4.8 Partial Autocorrelation plot of residuals for model Markov 3

138

1.0

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Markov 2 Residuals

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 +.005

.0430

2 -.005

.0430

3 -.061

.0430

4 +.029

.0430

5 +.040

.0430

6 -.028

.0430

7 +.040

.0430

8 +.096

.0430

9 -.012

.0430

10 +.030

.0430
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

Figure 4.9 Partial Autocorrelation plot of residuals for model Markov 2

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Markov 1 Residuals

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 -.046

.0389

2 +.050

.0389

3 +.007

.0389

4 +.097

.0389

5 +.063

.0389

6 -.019

.0389

7 +.045

.0389

8 +.021

.0389

9 +.037

.0389

10 +.095

.0389
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

Figure 4.10 Partial Autocorrelation plot of residuals for model Markov 1

139

1.0

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
200

400

600

800

1000

-0.2
-0.4

Figure 4.11 Observed temperature from 1955 with trend.

2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5

200

400

600

800

1000

Figure 4.12 Temperature trend from 1955-2050

140

Correlations between Local and Global Monthly Temperature Series (1961-2003)

G6103JAN

G6103FEB

G6103MAR

G6103APR

G6103MAY

G6103JUN

G6103JUL

G6103AUG

G6103SEP

G6103OCT

G6103NOV

G6103DEC

K6103JAN

K6103FEB

K6103MAR

K6103APR

K6103MAY

K6103JUN

K6103JUL

K6103AUG

K6103SEP

K6103OCT

K6103NOV

K6103DEC

Figure 4.13 Correlations between local and global monthly temperature series
showing significant correlations in most of the cases. Also the series distributions
are generally right skewed. The spread in local series is higher as compared to
global monthly series.

141

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Detrended Global Data

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 +.903

.0440

2 +.342

.0440

3 -.001

.0440

4 +.099

.0440

5 +.056

.0440

6 -.000

.0440

7 +.046

.0440

8 +.035

.0440

9 -.047

.0440

10 +.013

.0440
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

Figure 4.14 Partial Autocorrelation Function for global data (1961-2003)

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Detrended Local Data

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 +.420

.0440

2 +.102

.0440

3 +.006

.0440

4 +.066

.0440

5 +.082

.0440

6 +.053

.0440

7 +.037

.0440

8 +.123

.0440

9 +.017

.0440

10 +.019

.0440
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

142

0.5

1.0

Figure 4.15 Partial Autocorrelation Function for local data (1961-2003)

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Markov 2 Residuals of Local Data

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 -.001

.0440

2 -.009

.0440

3 -.031

.0440

4 +.017

.0440

5 +.062

.0440

6 +.052

.0440

7 +.015

.0440

8 +.126

.0440

9 +.045

.0440

10 -.003

.0440
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

Figure 4.16 Partial Autocorrelation plot of residuals (local case) for model Markov 2
showing a weak correlation at lag 8.

Partial Autocorrelation Function for Markov 2 Residuals of Global Data

(Standard errors assume AR order of k-1)
Lag Corr.

S.E.

1 -.004

.0440

2 -.049

.0440

3 -.106

.0440

4 -.005

.0440

5 +.007

.0440

6 -.040

.0440

7 +.021

.0440

8 +.064

.0440

9 -.013

.0440

10 +.043

.0440
-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

Figure 4.17 Partial Autocorrelation plot of residuals (global case) for model
Markov 2 showing a weak correlation at lag 4.

143

0.8

GANNUAL

0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
-0.2
-0.4
25.5

26.5

27.5

KANNUAL

Fig.4.18 Bayesian regression between local and global annual temperature

series with 95% CI. The relationship seems to be appropriate.

144

APPENDIX-II
Tables

Table 2.1 Comparing parametric and nonparametric estimates of

local atmospheric mean annual concentration of greenhouse emissions
from a megacity traffic flow.

Year

Mean*

Mean**

1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983

92.31
116.06
139.44
162.92
186.79
211.16
235.97
261.53
287.69
314.50
342.04
370.40
399.53
429.49
460.37

92.32
116.05
139.42
162.90
186.78
211.15
235.96
261.52
287.68
314.48
342.03
370.38
399.52
429.48
460.35

Parametric
confidence
intervals (95%)
89.81-94.85
110.67-121.47
133.00-145.37
151.39-171.89
175.05-196.44
198.88-222.98
221.44-248.18
246.47-275.52
274.97-302.31
302.32-330.09
328.56-355.05
357.07-383.50
385.15-410.16
415.01-442.28
445.02-475.26

* Parametric means
** Nonparametric means

145

Bootstrap
confidence
intervals (95%)
89.60-94.95
110.65-121.09
132.04-146.59
153.41-172.26
175.63-198.74
199.04-223.74
221.66-248.82
246.35-275.13
274.36-302.19
301.22-328.73
329.05-355.21
357.38-383.86
385.90-411.74
415.65-441.88
446.26-474.66

Table 3.1 Vehicle types and corresponding PCUs

Type of Vehicles

Passenger Car Units

Motorcycle
Car / Jeep / Suzuki
Rickshaw
Ford Wagon
Mini Bus (Mazda)
Buses / Trucks
Trailers
Pedal Cycle
Animal / Man Cart

0.25
1.00
0.50
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
0.10
4.00

Table 3.2 Mean peak hour delay values for important intersections of
Karachi region.
Intersections

Mean delays

Dak-Khana
Khyaban-e-Jami
Old-Exhibition
Jail Road
Three-Sword
SherShah
Gulshan

(Seconds/PCU)
46.38
47.67
17.67
71.27
42.65
40.89
108.47

Lower
95% C. I.

Upper
95% C. I.

Std.deviations

39.37
42.58
15.83
56.84
36.69
27.15
68.43

53.39
52.77
19.50
85.71
48.60
54.64
148.51

18.77
14.13
09.20
40.03
15.96
58.51
111.06

Program TRANSYT (TRAffic Network Study Tool) Version 9 was

utilised to obtain the delays and fuel consumption due to delays.

146

Table 4.1 Hurst exponents for the three regimes of global temperatures,
and for the local temperature fluctuations during 1961-2001.
Years

1860-1914

1915-1954

1955-1999

Local 1961-2001

0.40

0.31

0.54

0.52

Table 4.2.

Trend parameters in the three regimes with p-values.

Years

Intercept

1860-1914

- 0.303 0.014

- 0.000098 0.000036

< 0.008

1915-1954

- 0.330 0.014

0.00073 0.000049

0.0

1955-1999

- 0.187 0.012

0.00092 0.000040

0.0

Table 4.3.

Slope

p-values

Second order trend parameters

Values

Standard Errors

p-values

- 0.0599

0.0172

< 0.0006

- 0.00049

0.00015

< 0.0009

2.6 10-6

2.63 10-7

Parameters

Table 4.4.

Mean Absolute Deviations for linear and quadratic trends

147

Trend

0.1158

Quadratic

0.1033

Estimated Markov models parameters

Table 4.5.
Parameters

a1
B

a3
B

p-values
B

0.5549 0.0418

0.2600 0.0419

0, 0

0.4021 0.0455

0.1801 0.0485

0.1435 0.0456

0, 0.0002, 0.0018

Markov-3

Markov-2

Markov-1

Table 4.6
Parameters

Global-Markov-2
Local-Markov-2

Estimated Markov models parameters

a1

a2
B

0.5158 0.0334

Mean Absolute Deviation

Linear

a2
B

p-values

0.5950 0.0416

0.3492 0.0417

0, 0

0.3776 0.0440

0.1020 0.0440

0, 0.021

148

APPENDIX-III
Corrections in Books

Corrections were proposed in the following international edition books while

studying during the course of Ph D work.
[1] Ott W R (1995) Environmental statistics and data analysis, CRC Press,
Boca Raton, Florida.

[2] Verberg D, Edwin J P, and Steven E R (2000) Calculus 8 / e, Prentice-Hall,

NJ.

In book [1] the author wrongly entered in a column the value of sum of deviations
of the values of a random variable from its mean, very large from zero, which was
against foundations of mathematical statistics.

In book [2] the author formulated a physical system with incorrect differential
equation (Q. No. 37 on page 221).
U

149

APPENDIX-IV

List of Publications, Acceptance letters of Papers,

and copy of Published Paper

150

List of Publications
[1] Hussain M A, and Ansari M R K (2006), Statistical Aspects of Global
Warming, Arabian J. for Science and Engineering, Saudi Arabia. Accepted
[2] Hussain, M. A., M. R. K. Ansari, and A. Hussain. 2006. Traffic-related
greenhouse

emissions

threat

to

climate:

Deducing

model of

local

temperature fluctuation, with Karachi Region as a case study. Journal Mekanical,

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia. In press

[3] Hussain M A, and Ansari M R K (2005), Mega-city traffic emissions in

environmental studies: IPCC observations and simulation scheme involving
sampling distributions for missing data problem, Proc. Es-Dev Intl. Conference,
Abbottabad, Pakistan.
[4] Hussain M A, Ansari M R K and Hussain A (2006), Application of a Hybrid
Random Number Generator (RNG) in Bootstrapping of Environmental Data,
Malaysian J. of Science, University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.
Submitted
[5] Hussain M A, and Ansari M R K (2006), Comparative Study of Local and
Global Warming Dynamics,

Kuwait J. of Science and Engineering, Kuwait.

Submitted

[6] Hussain M A, and Ansari M R K (2006), Urban Traffic Congestion and Local
Greenhouse Budget,

Kuwait J. of Science and Engineering, Kuwait.

In preparation
151

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