Comparative analysis between daily extreme temperature and precipitation values derived from observations and gridded datasets in north-western Romania

Abstract

Climate gridded datasets are highly needed and useful in conducting data analysis for research and practical purposes. They provide long-term information on various climatic variables for large areas worldwide, making them suitable for use at any spatial level. It is essential to assess the accuracy of gridded data by comparing the data to measured values, especially when they are used as input parameters for hydro-climatic models. From the multitude of databases available for North-western Romania, we selected three, particularly the European Climate Assessment and Dataset (E-OBS), the Romanian Climatic Dataset (ROCADA), and the Climate of the Carpathian Region (CARPATCLIM). In this paper, we analyse the extreme precipitation and temperature data derived from the above-mentioned datasets over a common 50-year period (1961–2010) and compare the data with raw values to estimate the degree of uncertainty for each set of data. The observation data, recorded at two meteorological stations located in a complex topography region, were compared to the output of the gridded datasets, by using descriptive statistics for the mean and extreme annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation data, and trend analyses. The main findings are: the high suitability of the ROCADA gridded database for climate trend analysis and of the E-OBS gridded database for extreme temperature and precipitation analysis.