Journal Article

GPCC's new land surface precipitation climatology based on quality-controlled in situ data and its role in quantifying the global water cycle

Rudolf, Bruno, Schneider, Udo, Finger, Peter, Meyer-Christoffer, Anja, Becker, Andreas, Ziese, Markus

2014

Overview

In 1989, the need for reliable gridded land surface precipitation data sets, in view of the large uncertainties in the assessment of the global energy and water cycle, has led to the establishment of the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) at Deutscher Wetterdienst on invitation of the WMO. The GPCC has calculated a precipitation climatology for the global land areas for the target period 1951–2000 by objective analysis of climatological normals of about 67,200 rain gauge stations from its data base. GPCC's new precipitation climatology is compared to several other station-based precipitation climatologies as well as to precipitation climatologies derived from the GPCP V2.2 data set and from ECMWF's model reanalyses ERA-40 and ERA-Interim. Finally, how GPCC's best estimate for terrestrial mean precipitation derived from the precipitation climatology of 786 mm per year (equivalent to a water transport of 117,000 km³) is fitting into the global water cycle context is discussed.

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag,Springer Vienna,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Analysis / Aquatic Pollution / Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution / Atmospheric Sciences / Biogeochemical cycles / Climate change / Climate science / Climatology / data collection / Earth and Environmental Science / Earth Sciences / Earth, ocean, space / Exact sciences and technology / External geophysics / Hydrologic cycle / Hydrologic data / Meteorology / Original Paper / Precipitation / rain / Rain and rainfall / Rain gauges / Waste Water Technology / Water in the atmosphere (humidity, clouds, evaporation, precipitation) / Water Management / Water Pollution Control / Water transport