Climate and climate change in the Austrian–Swiss region of the European Alps during the twentieth century according to Feddema

We present a 1-km² gridded German dataset of hourly surface climate variables covering the period 1995 to 2012. The dataset comprises 12 variables including temperature, dew point, cloud cover, wind speed and direction, global and direct shortwave radiation, down- and up-welling longwave radiation, sea level pressure, relative humidity and vapour pressure. This dataset was constructed statistically from station data, satellite observations and model data. It is outstanding in terms of spatial and temporal resolution and in the number of climate variables. For each variable, we employed the most suitable gridding method and combined the best of several information sources, including station records, satellite-derived data and data from a regional climate model. A module to estimate urban heat island intensity was integrated for air and dew point temperature. Owing to the low density of available synop stations, the gridded dataset does not capture all variations that may occur at a resolution of 1 km². This applies to areas of complex terrain (all the variables), and in particular to wind speed and the radiation parameters. To achieve maximum precision, we used all observational information when it was available. This, however, leads to inhomogeneities in station network density and affects the long-term consistency of the dataset. A first climate analysis for Germany was conducted. The Rhine River Valley, for example, exhibited more than 100 summer days in 2003, whereas in 1996, the number was low everywhere in Germany. The dataset is useful for applications in various climate-related studies, hazard management and for solar or wind energy applications and it is available via doi: 10.5676/DWD_CDC/TRY_Basis_v001.     

Observed and projected climate change in the European region during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries according to Feddema

Climate change in the European region during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is analyzed according to Feddema’s method. Precipitation and air temperature data from the twentieth century are taken from the Climatic Research Unit, while data for the twenty-first century are taken from the ENSEMBLES climate change project. The latter were bias-corrected to ensure homogeneity across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Climate classes based on monthly and annual values of potential evapotranspiration, precipitation and their ratio, are defined for 30-year averages, from which trend and spatial agreement analysis are calculated. There are separate classes for annual values and for intra-annual variation. The results indicate that the change of annual climate characteristics will be much more intense in the twenty-first than it was in the twentieth century. The dominant process in the projections is warming, mostly via cold to cool (about 45% of grid points) in north Europe and cool to warm (about 8% of grid points) transformations. The second most important process is the drying of moderately moist classes affecting about 10% of the grid points in south Europe. Changes in intra-annual variability classes are more common than changes in the annual ones during the twentieth century. The chance of increase in intra-annual temperature variation from high to extreme is about 5% during the course of the twentieth century, and about 10% in the following century.     

Climate change in Hungary during the twentieth century according to Feddema

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Climate change in Hungary during the twentieth century is analyzed using Feddema’s original scheme suitable for global scale applications (F-GS) and...