Western Mediterranean precipitation over the last 300 years from instrumental observations

• Published in: Climatic change Vol. 117; no. 1-2; pp. 85 - 101
• Main Authors: Camuffo, D., Bertolin, C., Diodato, N., Cocheo, C., Barriendos, M., Dominguez-Castro, F., Garnier, E., Alcoforado, M. J., Nunes, M. F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-03-2013; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Verlag
• Subjects: 18th century; 19th century; Atmospheric Sciences; Autumn; Basins; Climate change; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Climate science; Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change; Correlation; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; History; Humanities and Social Sciences; Internet resources; Meteorology; Observatories; Precipitation; Rain; Reconstruction; Sea surface temperature; Spectra; Spectral analysis; Time series; Water in the atmosphere (humidity, clouds, evaporation, precipitation); Southern Europe; Europe; Mediterranean Basin; Mediterranean Area; Reference Period; Rain Gauge; Meteorological Observation; Wavelet Power Spectrum; Instrumental Observation; time series analysis; Century 20th; Historical reconstruction; trend-surface analysis; atmospheric precipitation; Century 19th; Observation data; Century 18th; Long term variation
• ISSN: 0165-0009; 1573-1480
• DOI: 10.1007/s10584-012-0539-9

The paper reports the results of the analysis of the 14 longest precipitation instrumental series, covering the last 300 years, that have been recovered in six subareas of the Western Mediterranean basin, i.e., Portugal, Northern and Southern Spain, Southern France, Northern and Southern Italy. This study extends back by one century our knowledge about the instrumental precipitation over the Western Mediterranean, and by two centuries in some specific subareas. All the time series show repeated swings. No specific trends have been found over the whole period, except in a few cases, but with modest time changes and sometimes having opposite tendency. The same can be said for the most recent decades although with some more marked departures from the average. The correlation between the various Mediterranean subareas is generally not significant, or almost uncorrelated. The Wavelet Spectral Analysis applied to the precipitation identifies only a minor 56-year cycle in autumn, i.e., the same return period that has been found in literature for the Sea Surface Temperature over North Atlantic. A comparison with a gridded dataset reconstruction based on mixed multiproxy and instrumental observations, shows that the grid reconstruction is in good agreement with the observed data for the period after 1900, less for the previous period.