What was done
Quoting the authors, "trend analyses applying the least-squares method and the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test for trends were carried out at six stations for the period 1941-2000 (60 years) and at nine stations for the period 1971-2000 (30 years)," while "a principal component analysis was applied to compute the all-Egypt temperature trends."

What was learned
In the first part of the study, positive 30-year (1971-2000) trends of mean annual air temperature were computed for eight of the nine stations, while only one station was found to have a "weakly negative" trend.  For the 60-year period (1941-2000), on the other hand, decreasing trends were observed in three of the six stations, while only weakly increasing trends were observed in the other three stations.

In the second part of the study, the all-Egypt mean annual temperature trend for 1971-2000 was positive.  For the 60-year period (1941-2000), however, it was negative.

What it means
Although Egypt warmed over the past 30 years, it actually cooled over the past 60 years, because it experienced so many more warmer temperatures in the early part of that longer time period.  This response is similar to the responses of most of the meteorological measurement stations in the United States, one of which we display weekly in our Temperature Record of the Week feature.  It is also similar to what is observed for most high northern latitude stations (see our Editorial of 12 Jan 2005); and it is characteristic of the vast bulk of Antarctica (see Antarctica (Temperature) in our Subject Index).

These several responses are definitely NOT what one would expect to see on the basis of (1) climate-alarmist claims for the great power of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations to drive up global air temperatures and (2) the nature of the increase in the air's CO2 content over the course of the 20th-century; for the atmosphere's CO2 concentration only rose by 12 ppm from 1900 to 1940, while it rose by 63 ppm (425% more) from 1940 to 2000, over which period temperatures in the above-noted regions of the earth actually declined.