Comparative analysis of spatial and seasonal variability: Austrian precipitation during the 20th century

Matulla, Christoph; Penlap, Edouard K.; Haas, Patrick; Formayer, Herbert

doi:10.1002/joc.960

Cited by 38 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…No general precipitation trends can be found for the whole of Austria. However, due to the important influence of the Alpine ridge, Austria has to be divided into 3 different precipitation regions (Matulla et al 2003). The most drought-prone region occurs in the northeastern part of Austria and is highly correlated with patterns in the neighboring Czech territory, as confirmed in this study.…”

Section: Regional and Large-scale Contextsupporting

confidence: 79%

Drought trends over part of Central Europe between 1961 and 2014

Trnka¹,

Bálek²,

Štěpánek³

et al. 2016

Clim. Res.

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An increase in drought frequency, duration and severity is expected for the Central European region as a direct consequence of climate change. This will have profound effects on a number of key sectors (e.g. agriculture, forestry, energy production and tourism) and also affect water resources, biodiversity and the landscape as a whole. However, global circulation models significantly differ in their projections for Central Europe with respect to the magnitude and timing of these changes. Therefore, analysis of changes in drought characteristics during the last 54 yr in relation to prevailing climate trends might significantly enhance our understanding of present and future drought risks. This study is based on a set of drought indices, including the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), the Palmer Zindex (Z-index) and the Standardized Precipitation−Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), in their most advanced formulations. The time series of the drought indices were calculated for 411 climatological stations across Austria (excluding the Alps), the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Up to 45% of the evaluated stations (depending on the index) became significantly drier during the 1961−2014 period except for areas in the west and north of the studied region. In addition to identifying the regions with the most pronounced drying trends, a drying trend consistency across the station network of 3 independent national weather services was shown. The main driver behind this development was an increase in the evaporative demand of the atmosphere, driven by higher temperatures and global radiation with limited changes in precipitation totals. The observed drying trends were most pronounced during the April−September period and in lower elevations. Conversely, the majority of stations above 1000 m exhibited a significant wetting trend for both the summer and winter (October−March) half-years.

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Section: Regional and Large-scale Contextsupporting

confidence: 79%

Drought trends over part of Central Europe between 1961 and 2014

Trnka¹,

Bálek²,

Štěpánek³

et al. 2016

Clim. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Decreasing precipitation amounts towards the flatter eastern parts result from the predominating continental air masses there. Additionally, the inner alpine valleys feature reduced precipitation amounts due to the rain shadowing of the mountain ranges (compare Figure 2(a); Cebon et al, 1998;Matulla et al, 2003). The observed climatology given in Figure 2(a) covers the period 1981-1990 according to the focus period of this study, but the spatial patterns as well as the magnitudes are comparable to the climatic conditions between 1971 and 1990 shown in Frei and Schär (1998).…”

Section: Data and Study Regionsupporting

confidence: 57%

Empirical‐statistical downscaling and error correction of daily precipitation from regional climate models

Themeßl

Gobiet

Leuprecht

2011

Intl Journal of Climatology

627

479

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ABSTRACT:Although regional climate models (RCMs) are powerful tools for describing regional and even smaller scale climate conditions, they still feature severe systematic errors. In order to provide optimized climate scenarios for climate change impact research, this study merges linear and nonlinear empirical-statistical downscaling techniques with bias correction methods and investigates their ability for reducing RCM error characteristics. An ensemble of seven empiricalstatistical downscaling and error correction methods (DECMs) is applied to post-process daily precipitation sums of a high-resolution regional climate hindcast simulation over the Alpine region, their error characteristics are analysed and compared to the raw RCM results.Drastic reductions in error characteristics due to application of DECMs are demonstrated. Direct point-wise methods like quantile mapping and local intensity scaling as well as indirect spatial methods as nonlinear analogue methods yield systematic improvements in median, variance, frequency, intensity and extremes of daily precipitation. Multiple linear regression methods, even if optimized by predictor selection, transformation and randomization, exhibit significant shortcomings for modelling daily precipitation due to their linear framework. Comparing the well-performing methods to each other, quantile mapping shows the best performance, particularly at high quantiles, which is advantageous for applications related to extreme precipitation events. The improvements are obtained regardless of season and region, which indicates the potential transferability of these methods to other regions.

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“…A similar study was reported in Matulla et al (2003) whereby regionality of Austrian precipitation was identified using EOF and other pattern analysis techniques. The mountainous topography was identified as profoundly affecting the seasonal influence of the prevailing air masses upon precipitation.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 57%

Recent accumulation variability and change on the Antarctic Peninsula from the ERA40 reanalysis

Miles

Marshall

McConnell

et al. 2007

Intl Journal of Climatology

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ABSTRACT:The Antarctic Peninsula has displayed significant climate change over recent decades. Understanding contemporaneous changes in accumulation is made difficult because the region's complex orography means that icecore data are not necessarily representative of a wider area. In this paper, the patterns of regional spatial accumulation variability across the Antarctic Peninsula region are presented, based on an Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis of European Centre for Medium Range Forecasts Reanalysis (ERA40) data over the 23-year period from 1979 through 2001. Annual and seasonal trends in the sign and strength of these patterns are identified, as is their relationship with mean sea level pressure, temperature and indices of large-scale circulation variability.The results reveal that the first pattern of accumulation variability on the Peninsula is primarily related to pressure in the circumpolar trough and the second pattern to temperature: together the two EOFs explain ∼45-65% of the annual/seasonal accumulation. The strongest positive trend in an EOF occurs with EOF2 in the austral autumn March-April-May (MAM). This is highly correlated with the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) in this season, suggesting stronger westerly winds have caused an increase in orographic precipitation along the west Antarctic Peninsula. A significant correlation with ENSO occurs only in the winter EOF1, associated with blocking in the Bellingshausen Sea.Inter-annual ERA40 accumulation is shown to compare favourably with an ice core in the south of the Peninsula, but, for a variety of reasons, correlates poorly with accumulation as measured in an ice core from the northern tip. Opposite trends in accumulation at these two sites can be explained by the spatial pattern and trend of EOF2 in MAM and thus by recent changes in the SAM. The results of this study will aid in the understanding of temporal accumulation changes observed in the regional ice-core record.

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Comparative analysis of spatial and seasonal variability: Austrian precipitation during the 20th century

Cited by 38 publications

References 13 publications

Drought trends over part of Central Europe between 1961 and 2014

Drought trends over part of Central Europe between 1961 and 2014

Empirical‐statistical downscaling and error correction of daily precipitation from regional climate models

Recent accumulation variability and change on the Antarctic Peninsula from the ERA40 reanalysis

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