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Besides dynamical downscaling by regional climate models, statistical downscaling (SD) is a major tool to derive climate change projections on regional or even local scales. For the Mediterranean area, an increasing number of downscaling studies based on different statistical techniques have been published in the last two decades with a broad range of sometimes differing results relating to different variables and regional domains. This paper gives a short review of these Mediterranean downscaling studies mainly considering the following two aspects: (1) what kind of progress has been realized in this field since the early 1990s? The review addresses the inclusion of extremes in downscaling assessments, the development of probabilistic approaches, the extension of predictor sets, the use of ensembles for both dynamical model simulations and statistical model assessments, the consideration of nonstationarities in the predictor-predictand relationships, and some advances related to synoptic downscaling. (2) What are the main regional climate change signals in the Mediterranean area, considering agreed and controversial points also with respect to dynamical models? Best accordance among future projections can be found in seasonal temperatures with lower rates of warming in winter and spring, and, in most cases, higher ones in summer and autumn. Different results are obtained for the intra-annual range of extreme temperatures, but high-temperature conditions are generally expected to increase. Regarding seasonal precipitation, predominant reductions are indicated for spring, summer, and autumn. For winter, however, projections are distinctly different (GCMs: rainfall decrease; RCMs: increase only in the northernmost parts of the Mediterranean region; SD: widespread increases in the northern and western parts in several studies). Different results are obtained for rainfall extremes, but the entire precipitation distribution tends to shift towards higher and lower values. Apart from some sub-regional deviations, there is a predominant increase in future dry period durations. For near-surface winds, only a few studies are available, and they project some decline mainly for the winter season.

Variability of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical southeast Atlantic Ocean has previously been shown to significantly contribute to changes in summer rainfall along the West African as well as the Angolan coast. This study examines links between southeast Atlantic SST and African west coast precipitation variability for an extended 60-year period from 1951 to 2010. In contrast to earlier studies, our analyses cover the whole Atlantic coast from Guinea to South Africa and are not limited to specific seasons. In addition to the analyses of the total variability, pronounced anomalies in terms of warm and cold water events and their impact on African west coast precipitation are analyzed. By using for the first time a new comprehensive classification of Atlantic Niño and Niña events, consistent results are achieved for a larger region of Africa, also considering Atlantic cold water events which have rather been neglected so far.Results show that, depending on the particular region, southeast Atlantic SSTs play an important role for coastal rainfall variability throughout the year. Furthermore, the rainfall response to Atlantic cold and warm water events appears to be asymmetric in season and magnitude. Atlantic cold events can cause a stronger decrease in rainfall along the West African and Gabon coast than the increase is in warm events. In addition, not all seasons show a significant rainfall response to both warm and cold water events.

In this small trial that was based on prior positive trials, significant gains in ADL and arm function suggest that the dose and timing of dexamphetamine can augment physiotherapy. Effect size calculation suggests inclusion of at least 25 patients per group in future studies.

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