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Trends in extremes of temperature, dew point, and precipitation from long instrumental series from central Europe

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Abstract

For the analysis of trends in weather extremes, we introduce a diagnostic index variable, the exceedance product, which combines intensity and frequency of extremes. We separate trends in higher moments from trends in mean or standard deviation and use bootstrap resampling to evaluate statistical significances. The application of the concept of the exceedance product to daily meteorological time series from Potsdam (1893 to 2005) and Prague–Klementinum (1775 to 2004) reveals that extremely cold winters occurred only until the mid-20th century, whereas warm winters show upward trends. These changes were significant in higher moments of the temperature distribution. In contrast, trends in summer temperature extremes (e.g., the 2003 European heatwave) can be explained by linear changes in mean or standard deviation. While precipitation at Potsdam does not show pronounced trends, dew point does exhibit a change from maximum extremes during the 1960s to minimum extremes during the 1970s.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the profound review comments on the theory of multivariate extremes and on previous work. We thank Friedrich-Wilhelm Gerstengarbe and Peter Werner for comments on a previous version of the manuscript. We are grateful to Andrea Bleyer for proofreading. Financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (TE 51/25) is acknowledged. Rudolf Brázdil was supported by research project MŠM0021622412 (INCHEMBIOL). A software version of the exceedance product method is available from www.mudelsee.com.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Meteorology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    K. Kürbis & G. Tetzlaff

  2. Climate Risk Analysis, Schneiderberg 26, 30167, Hanover, Germany

    M. Mudelsee

  3. Institute of Geography, Masaryk University Brno, 61137, Brno, Czech Republic

    R. Brázdil

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  1. K. Kürbis
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  2. M. Mudelsee
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  3. G. Tetzlaff
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  4. R. Brázdil
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Correspondence to M. Mudelsee.

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Kürbis, K., Mudelsee, M., Tetzlaff, G. et al. Trends in extremes of temperature, dew point, and precipitation from long instrumental series from central Europe. Theor Appl Climatol 98, 187–195 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-008-0094-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-008-0094-5

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