Abstract
Abstract. More intense rainfall may cause a range of negative impacts upon society and the environment. In this study we analysed trends in extreme ETCCDI (Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices) rainfall indices in Montenegro for the period between 1951 and 2010. Montenegro has been poorly studied in terms of rainfall extremes, yet it contains the wettest Mediterranean region known as Krivošije. Several indices of precipitation extremes were assessed including the number of dry days and rainfall totals in order to identify trends and possible changes. A spatial pattern relationship between extreme rainfall indices and the North Atlantic Oscillation has also been examined. The results generally suggest that the number of days with precipitation decreased while rainfall intensity increased, particularly in south-western parts of the country. A slight tendency towards intense rainfall events is suggested. The examined rainfall indices and North Atlantic Oscillation over Montenegro seemed to be directly linked to changes in one of the major large-scale circulation modes such as the NAO pattern that is particularly evident during the winter season.
Highlights
Rainfall extremes over the Mediterranean region are of particular interest since they can have serious environmental, societal and economic impacts
The analysis was performed for each of them at annual and seasonal scales. To better visualize their spatial pattern, trends of indices are depicted by bar graphs using different colours for annual and seasonal scales (Figs. 3–9)
When comparing the results found for Italian stations, there is a lag of one season in Montenegro, pointing out that the strongest increase of simple daily precipitation intensity index (SDII) in Montenegro is during spring
Summary
Rainfall extremes over the Mediterranean region are of particular interest since they can have serious environmental, societal and economic impacts. Annual rainfall over the Mediterranean region generally decreased during the second half of the 20th century (Raiser and Kutiel, 2010; Trenberth et al, 2007), the frequency of heavy rainfall generally increased (Alpert et al, 2002; Kostopoulou and Jones, 2005; Ducicet al., 2012). Rodrigo and Trigo (2007) analysed spatial patterns of rainfall extremes at annual and seasonal scales for the whole Iberian Peninsula (1951–2002) using 15 stations. They noticed a significant negative trend in daily intensity rainfall at an annual level, between −2.00 and −5.76 mm day−1, which was pronounced in northern and southern stations. Using observations from 105 stations, they concluded that indices of rainfall extremes (frequency of extremely heavy precipitation events and index characterizing flood events) have shown no significant temporal trends
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