Domonkos, Peter and Coll, John and Guijarro, José and Curley, Mary and Rustemeier, Elke and Aguilar, Enric and Walsh, Séamus and Sweeney, John (2020) Precipitation trends in the island of Ireland using a dense, homogenized, observational dataset. International Journal of Climatology, 40 (15). pp. 6458-6472. ISSN 0899-8418

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Abstract

A dense monthly precipitation dataset of Ireland and Northern Ireland was homogenized with several modern homogenization methods. The efficiency of these homogenizations was tested by examining the similarity of homogenization results both in the real data homogenization and in the homogenization of a simulated dataset. The analysis of homogenization results shows that the real dataset is characterized by a large number of, but mostly small, non-climatic biases, and a moderate reduction of such biases can be achieved with homogenization. Finally, a combination of the ACMANT and Climatol homogenization results was applied to improve the data accuracy before the trend calculations. These two methods were selected for their proven high accuracy, missing data tolerance and ability to complete time series via the infilling of missing values before the trend calculations. Metadata were used within the Climatol method. To facilitate this analysis the study area was split into smaller climatic regions by using the Ward clustering method. Five climatic zones consistent with the known spatial patterns of precipitation in Ireland were established. Linear regression fitting and the Mann-Kendall test were applied. Low frequency fluctuations were also examined by applying a Gaussian filter. The results show that the precipitation amount generally increases in the study area, particularly in the northwestern region. The most significant increasing trends for the whole study period (1941–2010) are found for late winter and spring precipitation, as well as for the annual totals. In the period from the early 1970s the increase of precipitation is general in all seasons of the year except in winter, but the statistical significance of this increase is weak.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	ACMANT; Climatol homogenization; Ireland precipitation; trend Ward clustering;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography
Item ID:	16333
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6592
Depositing User:	Dr John Coll
Date Deposited:	20 Jul 2022 10:30
Journal or Publication Title:	International Journal of Climatology
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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