Statistical Reconstruction of Daily Precipitation and Temperature Fields in Switzerland back to 1864

Pfister, Lucas; Brönnimann, Stefan; Schwander, Mikhaël; Isotta, Francesco Alessandro; Horton, Pascal; Rohr, Christian (2019). Statistical Reconstruction of Daily Precipitation and Temperature Fields in Switzerland back to 1864. Climate of the past discussions Copernicus Publications 10.5194/cp-2019-124

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Spatial information on past weather contributes to better understand the processes behind day-to-day weather variability and to assess the risks arising from weather extremes. For Switzerland, daily-resolved spatial information on meteorological parameters is restricted to the period starting from 1961, whereas prior to that local station observations are the only source of daily, long-term weather data. While attempts have been made to reconstruct spatial weather patterns for certain extreme events, the task of creating a continuous spatial weather reconstruction dataset for Switzerland has so far not been addressed. Here, we aim to reconstruct daily, high-resolution precipitation and temperature fields for Switzerland back to 1864 with an analogue resampling method (ARM) using station data and a weather type classification. Analogue reconstructions are post-processed with an ensemble Kalman fitting (EnKF) approach and quantile mapping. Results suggest that the presented methods are suitable for daily precipitation and temperature reconstruction. Evaluation experiments reveal an excellent skill for temperature and a good skill for precipitation. As illustrated on the example of the avalanche winter 1887/88, these weather reconstructions have a great potential for various analyses of past weather and for climate impact modelling.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography > Physical Geography > Unit Climatology
10 Strategic Research Centers > Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR) > MobiLab
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography > Physical Geography
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of History > Economic, Social and Environmental History

Graduate School:

Graduate School of Climate Sciences

UniBE Contributor:

Pfister, Lucas Martin, Brönnimann, Stefan, Horton, Pascal, Rohr, Christian

Subjects:

900 History > 910 Geography & travel

ISSN:

1814-9359

Publisher:

Copernicus Publications

Funders:

[4] Swiss National Science Foundation

Projects:

[UNSPECIFIED] CHIMES

Language:

English

Submitter:

André Hürzeler

Date Deposited:

12 Nov 2019 13:31

Last Modified:

12 Oct 2023 16:14

Publisher DOI:

10.5194/cp-2019-124

Additional Information:

Preprint. Discussion started: 5 November 2019

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.134930

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/134930

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