Rainfall uncertainty in the Mediterranean: time series, uncertainty, and extreme events

Abstract

Temporal precipitation irregularities, extreme rainfall, or droughts represent great climate concerns and have major impacts on the natural environment. The present study focuses on 41 stations spread over the entire Mediterranean region. The datasets contain daily rainfall totals, with a median length of 56 years within the period of 1931–2006. The study aims at detecting significant trends in the time series and the uncertainties of four parameters: annual rainfall total, number of rain spells, the rain-spells yields, and rainy season length. In addition, it aims to detect significant temporal changes in the occurrence of extreme events of these parameters. Several methodologies have been used in this study, and the main conclusion is that despite the general assumption of tremendous changes in the rainfall regime, no significant temporal trends or uncertainty trends were found in most of the stations, neither in their annual totals, their number of rain spells, and their rain-spell yields, nor in their rainy season length. However, in the few cases that a significant trend was detected, former years tended to be wetter, longer, and with more abundant rain spells, while the opposite is seen in the later years; and uncertainty, tends to increase more than to decrease.