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Five hundred years of gridded high-resolution precipitation
reconstructions over Europe and the connection to large-scale
circulation.
Climate Dynamics
Volume 26, No. 4, pp. 387-405, March 2006
Andreas Pauling1, Jürg Luterbacher1,2,
Carlo Casty3, Heinz Wanner1,2
1
Institute of Geography, University of Bern,
Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
2
National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) in Climate,
Erlachstrasse 9a, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
3
Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute,
University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Fig. 9 a,c. Scaled anomaly composites of winter (DJF) precipitation. The composite precipitation maps are based on the
5% wettest (panel a) and driest winters (panel c) over central Europe of the period 1500-2000.
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ABSTRACT:
We present seasonal precipitation reconstructions
for European land areas (30°W to 40°E/30-71°N;
given on a 0.5° x 0.5° resolved grid) covering the period
1500-1900 together with gridded reanalysis from 1901 to
2000 (Mitchell and Jones 2005). Principal component
regression techniques were applied to develop this dataset.
A large variety of long instrumental precipitation series,
precipitation indices based on documentary evidence and
natural proxies (tree-ring chronologies, ice cores, corals
and a speleothem) that are sensitive to precipitation signals
were used as predictors. Transfer functions were derived
over the 1901-1983 calibration period and applied
to 1500-1900 in order to reconstruct the large-scale precipitation
fields over Europe. The performance (quality
estimation based on unresolved variance within the calibration
period) of the reconstructions varies over centuries,
seasons and space. Highest reconstructive skill was
found for winter over central Europe and the Iberian
Peninsula. Precipitation variability over the last half
millennium reveals both large interannual and decadal
fluctuations. Applying running correlations, we found
major non-stationarities in the relation between large-scale
circulation and regional precipitation. For several
periods during the last 500 years, we identified key
atmospheric modes for southern Spain/northern Morocco
and central Europe as representations of two precipitation
regimes. Using scaled composite analysis, we
show that precipitation extremes over central Europe and
southern Spain are linked to distinct pressure patterns.
Due to its high spatial and temporal resolution, this
dataset allows detailed studies of regional precipitation
variability for all seasons, impact studies on different time
and space scales, comparisons with high-resolution climate
models as well as analysis of connections with regional
temperature reconstructions.
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