Daily precipitation concentration across Europe 1971–2010

Abstract

Abstract. Daily Precipitation Concentration Index (CI) was used in this paper to investigate the statistical structure of daily precipitation across Europe based on 530 daily rainfall series for the period 1971-2010. Annual CI shows a NorthWest to South-East gradient (excluding Turkey and Greece). The same gradient is also observed in winter, spring and autumn, while in summer the gradient is North-South. Highest annual and seasonal daily concentrations of rainfall were detected in the western Mediterranean basin, mainly along Spanish and French coastlands. Latitude and distance from the sea seems to play a major role on spatial CI distribution; at subregional scale also relief plays an important role. The Mann-Kendall test did not identify uniform significant pattern in temporal trend across Europe for 1971-2010 period. The only broad areas with increasing annual and seasonal CI values are located in northern and south-western France and northern coastlands of the Iberian Peninsula. This findings suggest that daily precipitation distribution has not significantly changed during the 1971-2010 over Europe.

Variation of precipitation concentration from 1960 to 2014 in the Middle and Lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin, China

“…These results were similar to the study conducted by Wang et al (2013). The changes in PCD may be related to the number of rainy days (Cortesi et al, 2012), the plum rains season , summer rainfall (Zhang et al, 2009) or extreme precipitation (Alexander et al, 2006). Besides, there was a significant transition of PCD trend from positive/negative to negative/positive in the southwest/southeast part during two sub-periods.…”

Spatial and Temporal Variability in the Precipitation Concentration in the Upper Reaches of the Hongshui River Basin, Southwestern China

“…Specifically, the PCI represents the contribution of days of heavy precipitation to the total amount of precipitation over a certain period (usually 1 year). Since Martin-Vide initially proposed the PCI, it has been used to detect or monitor the temporal heterogeneity in the precipitation distributions of many regions around the world [20,[25][26][27][28][29]. Zhang and Qian [30] used the vector analysis principle to define two indices, the PCD and PCP, to analyse the temporal characteristics of precipitation.…”

“…Zhang and Qian [30] used the vector analysis principle to define two indices, the PCD and PCP, to analyse the temporal characteristics of precipitation. Considering their scientific and practical merits, the PCD and PCP have been used in many studies to analyse the properties and spatial and temporal characteristics of precipitation at the regional and subregional scales in recent years [20,25,26,28,29]. Various indicators have distinct advantages; therefore, to scientifically evaluate the spatial and temporal variations of precipitation, it is necessary to analyse these indices at the same time.…”

Measure of rainfall time structure using the dimensionless n-index

“…Some indices are based on Lorenz curves for rainfall, such as the Concentration Index (CI) of Martín-Vide (2004), which is climatically related to the percentage of days of rain that accumulate most of the annual precipitation (Cortesi et al 2012, Benhamrouche et al 2015. Similarly, Maraun et al (2008) defined 10 sorted categories (C 10 ), and each one of them makes up 10% of the total rainfall amount for each month of the year.…”