High resolution air temperature climatology for Greece for the period 1971–2000

Abstract

ABSTRACTClimate atlases provide an excellent overview of a region's climate in the form of maps and disclose information about climate change. They constitute a valuable tool for easy access and management of climate information for a wide range of users including scientists, policymakers, resource managers and urban planners.The main aim of this work was the production of high resolution monthly mean air temperature climatology for Greece, determined from a high resolution homogeneous mean temperature dataset. Temperature data were obtained from 52 meteorological stations of the Hellenic National Meteorological Service. High resolution temperature maps were obtained by interpolating the homogenized data. MISH (Meteorological Interpolation based on Surface Homogenized Data), an interpolation method developed for meteorological purposes, was applied twice, once using as topographic model variables the elevation derived from a 90 m digital elevation model (DEM) and the first 15 AURELHY (Analyse Utilisant le Relief pour les Bésoins de l'Hydrométéorologie) principal components, and then using some additional model variables besides the elevation and the 15 AURELHY principal components: latitude, incoming solar irradiance, Euclidean distance from the coastline and land to sea percentage. The spatial interpolation of monthly mean temperature was performed with a 0.5′ resolution (∼730 m at 38 ° N). The results showed that modelling with only the AURELHY variables is not sufficient and the use of additional model variables is necessary.