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Beyond global trends: two decades of climate data in the world’s highest Equatorial city

Abstract:

While humanity stands at a critical point—one future leading toward sustainability, equity, and resilience, the other toward escalating conflicts, ecological collapse, and irreversible loss—climate change emerges as one of the most urgent challenges of the 21st century. The Global South, specifically the northwestern South American region, lacks model confidence and reports on current climatic conditions due to gaps in historical data. This study, therefore, presents temperature and precipitation trends in the highest city on the equator, Quito, Ecuador, from 2004–2024. Six different districts were analyzed for maximum, average, and minimum temperatures, as well as cumulative precipitation, in terms of monthly and annual statistics, using Seasonal-Trend Decomposition. Over the past two decades, this Andean city has warmed by an average of +0.95 °C, with minimum temperatures rising at rates twice the global urban average of extreme urban heat islands (+2.47 °C), while precipitation has nearly doubled in rapidly developing parts of the city. These profound changes, shaped by urban expansion, El Niño–Southern Oscillation variability, and climate change, demand urgent adaptation in water management, urban planning, and climate resilience strategies, as well as comparative studies with rural Ecuador to differentiate local vs. regional climate signatures.