Abstract
Climatic aspects of extreme European precipitation are studied. Daily pluviometric data from 280 stations across Europe, covering the period from 1958 to 2000, are used. First, the criteria for extreme precipitation cases and episodes are communicated using threshold and spatial definitions. The cases and episodes meeting these criteria are grouped according to their area of appearance. Most of them are located in three major areas: Greece, the Alps, and the Iberian Peninsula. The existence of trends in the annual and seasonal time series of these extreme events is examined. Decreasing trends are found in most of the cases, for Greece, the Iberian Peninsula, and Europe, as a whole. The Alps present a different behavior, with no trend at all in the southern part, and a possible increasing trend in the northern part. Finally, the positive impact of altitude in the frequency of occurrence of extreme precipitation episodes in Europe is discussed.
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Karagiannidis, A.F., Karacostas, T., Maheras, P. et al. Climatological aspects of extreme precipitation in Europe, related to mid-latitude cyclonic systems. Theor Appl Climatol 107, 165–174 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-011-0474-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-011-0474-0