A Multidataset Analysis of Precipitation Trends in Europe

Abstract Understanding long-term changes in precipitation is crucial for climate research, as it plays a key role in shaping water availability, ecosystem stability, and the occurrence of extreme weather phenomena. However, it is a well-established fact that different data types (station, gridded, and reanalyses) can yield varied results in statistical analyses of extremes and trends. This study investigates the long-term changes in precipitation characteristics across various data sources, focusing on the European land area. We analyze station data from the European Climate Assessment and Dataset (ECA&D) project. Station data interpolated onto a regular grid are represented by the gridded version of the ECA dataset [European Daily High-Resolution Observational Gridded Dataset (E-OBS)] and the Rainfall Estimates on a Gridded Network (REGEN) and the reanalyses data include NCEP/NCAR, the Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) dataset, and the high-resolution fifth generation ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis (ERA5). The objective is to explore the seasonal trends in precipitation total amounts, intensity, and probability from 1961 to 2010, with a focus on winter and summer. The trends of winter precipitation totals and probabilities show a substantial north–south gradient, with positive trends in the north. All data sources underestimate the spatial extent of positive trends and overestimate the spatial extent of negative trends compared to ECA&D. Precipitation intensity trends lack clear geographic patterns, but statistically significant positive trends prevail in northeastern Europe. In general, a similar trend pattern is evident within the ECA&D, E-OBS, and ERA5 datasets. Conversely, the NCEP/NCAR and 20CR reanalyses exhibit the most significant disparities in trends for all precipitation characteristics.