Workshop on Indices and Indicators for Climate Extremes: Asheville, NC, USA, 3–6 June 1997 Breakout Group B: Precipitation

Abstract

A uniform, international reference system of precipitation indices would greatly facilitate assessment of changes in global precipitation patterns, intensities and extremes. However, national/regional differences in precipitation monitoring standards, data quality control procedures, and product development practices complicate efforts to develop such a system. This report represents the results of Working Group B's concerted effort to examine in detail the problems associated with the development of the needed indicators and the Group's recommendations to address the identified issues. The Group concluded that a successful strategy must define a minimum set of indices/indicators based on higher quality data that would represent a global base set. The Group identified a set of indices for this purpose. This base data set should be complemented where possible by countries/regions having the data sets and processing resources to do more.