Evaluating the GPCC Full Data Daily Analysis Version 2018 through ETCCDI indices and comparison with station observations over mainland of China

Abstract

The new 1° × 1° resolution global Full Data Daily Analysis Version 2018 published by the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) of Deutscher Wetterdienst was compared with an analysis of the measurements from the national dataset over the mainland of China with regard to four of the 27 ETCCDI indices (http://etccdi.pacificclimate.org/list_27_indices.shtml) commonly used to determine extreme precipitation (Rx5day, R10mm, CDD and SDII). After extreme value check, integrity check, and homogeneity check, the observations from 2327 surface stations covering the years from 1982 to 2016 fulfilled the criteria for the evaluation. The in situ daily precipitation data were interpolated onto a 1° × 1° grid over the mainland of China by employing Shepard’s angular and distance weighting algorithm. The four aforementioned indices were then calculated on the national station–based analysis being referred to as STA. Moreover, the aforementioned gridded GPCC Full Data Daily product was directly utilized to calculate the same indices (FDDA). The China national means of Rx5day, R10mm, CDD and SDII calculated from FDDA and STA had similar variations and trends with high correlation coefficients, and the mean biases between FDDA and STA were 2.5 mm, 1.2 days, 0.0 day and 0.3 mm respectively. The trends of Rx5day, R10mm and SDII are increasing, whereas the trend of CDD is negative. The distributions of the grid mean and the grid trends of indices over China from FDDA and STA show similar patterns too, indicating that the FDDA shows a surprisingly high fidelity in reproducing almost the same patterns in the four ETCCDI indices chosen compared with the STA-based analysis.