Assessing trends in extreme precipitation events intensity and magnitude using non-stationary peaks-over-threshold analysis: A case study in northeast Spain from 1930 to 2006

International Journal of Climatology

Volumn 31, Issue 14, 2011, Pages 2102-2114

  Beguería, Santiago ^a   Angulo Martínez, Marta ^a   Vicente Serrano, Sergio M ^b   López Moreno, J Ignacio ^b   El Kenawy, Ahmed ^b  

^a CSIC   (Spain)

^b INSTITUTO PIRENAICO DE ECOLOGÍA   (Spain)

Author keywords

Climate variability; Extreme events; Iberian Peninsula; Non stationary extreme value analysis; Precipitation; Regional climate change; Spain; Time series analysis

Indexed keywords

CLIMATE VARIABILITY; EXTREME EVENTS; IBERIAN PENINSULA; NONSTATIONARY; REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGES; SPAIN;

CLIMATE CHANGE; CLIMATE MODELS; RAIN; STATISTICAL TESTS; TIME SERIES;

TIME SERIES ANALYSIS;

CLIMATE CHANGE; CLIMATE VARIATION; EXTREME EVENT; PRECIPITATION (CLIMATOLOGY); PRECIPITATION ASSESSMENT; PRECIPITATION INTENSITY; REGIONAL CLIMATE; TREND ANALYSIS;

IBERIAN PENINSULA; SPAIN;

EID: 80054991876     PISSN: 08998418     EISSN: 10970088     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/joc.2218     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Abaurrea J, Asín J, Cebrián AC, Centelles A. 2007. Modeling and forecasting extreme hot events in the central Ebro valley, a continental-Mediterranean area. Global and Planetary Change 57: 43-58.
2. Beguería S. 2005. Uncertainties in partial duration series modelling of extremes related to the choice of the threshold value. Journal of Hydrology 303: 215-230.
3. Beguería S, Vicente-Serrano SM, López-Moreno JI, García-Ruiz JM. 2009. Annual and seasonal mapping of peak intensity, magnitude and duration of extreme precipitation events across a climatic gradient, North-East Spain. International Journal of Climatology 29(12): 1759-1779.
4. Brath A, Castellarin A, Montanari A. 2001. At-site and regional assessment of the possible presence of non-stationarity in extreme rainfall in northern Italy. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth (B) 26(9): 705-710.
5. Brunetti M, Buffoni L, Mangianti F, Maugeri M, Nanni T. 2004. Temperature, precipitation and extreme events during the last century in Italy. Global and Planetary Change 40(1-2): 141-149.
6. Chavez-Demoulin V, Davison AC. 2005. Generalized additive modelling of sample extremes. Applied Statistics 54: 207-222.
7. Coles S. 2001. An Introduction to Statistical Modeling of Extreme Values. Springer-Verlag: London.
8. Cunnane C. 1973. A particular comparison of annual maxima and partial duration series methods of flood frequency prediction. Journal of Hydrology 18(3/4): 257-271.
9. Cunnane C. 1979. A note on the Poisson assumption in partial duration series models. Water Resources Research 15: 489-494.
10. Easterling DR, Meehl GA, Parmesan C, Changnon SA, Karl TR, Mearns LO. 2000. Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts. Science 289(5487): 2068-2074.
11. ESRI (Environmental Systems Resource Institute). 2009. ArcGIS 9.3. ESRI: Redlands, CA.
12. Groisman PY, Karl TR, Easterling DR, Knight RW, Jamason PB, Hennessy JK, Suppiah R, Page ChM, Wibig J, Fortuniak K, Razuvaev VN, Douglas A, Forland E, Zhai PM. 1999. Changes in the probability of heavy precipitation: important indicators of climatic changes. Climatic Change 42(1): 243-283.
13. Groisman PY, Knight RW, Easterling DR, Karl TR, Hegerl GC, Razuvaev VN. 2005. Trends in intense precipitation in the climate record. Journal of Climate 18(9): 1326-1350.
14. Hall P, Tajvidi N. 2000. Non-parametric analysis of temporal trend when fitting parametric models to extreme-value data. Statistical Science 15: 153-167.
15. Hershfield DM. 1973. On the probability of extreme rainfall events. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 54: 1013-1018.
16. Hosking JRM, Wallis JR. 1987. Parameter and quantile estimation for the Generalized Pareto distribution. Technometrics 29(3): 339-349.
17. Karl T, Knight RW. 1998. Secular trends of precipitation amount, frequency, and intensity in the United States. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79(2): 231-241.
18. Karl TR, Knight RW, Plummer N. 1995. Trends in high-frequency climate variability in the Twentieth Century. Nature 377(6546): 217-220.
19. Katz RW. 1999. Extreme value theory for precipitation: sensitivity analysis for climate change. Advances in Water Resources 23: 133-139.
20. Katz RW, Parlange MB, Naveau P. 2002. Statistics of extremes in hydrology. Advances in Water Resources 25(8-12): 1287-1304.
21. Kyselý J, Beranová R. 2009. Climate change effects on extreme precipitation in central Europe: uncertainties of scenarios based on regional climate models. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 95(3-4): 361-374.
22. Lana X, Mills GF, Burgueño A. 1995. Daily precipitation maxima in Catalonia (North-East Spain): expected values and their spatial distribution. International Journal of Climatology 15: 341-354.
23. Laurent C, Parey S. 2007. Estimation of 100-year return-period temperatures in France in a non-stationary climate: results from observations and IPCC scenarios. Global and Planetary Change 57: 177-188.
24. Leadbetter MR, Lindgren G, Rootzén H. 1983. Extremes and Related Properties of Random Sequences and Series. Springer Verlag: New York.
25. Li Y, Cai W, Campbell EP. 2005. Statistical modeling of extreme rainfall in southwest Western Australia. Journal of Climate 18: 852-863.
26. López-Moreno JI, Beniston M. 2009. Daily precipitation intensity projected for the 21st century: seasonal changes over the Pyrenees. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 95: 375-384.
27. Madsen H, Rosbjerg D. 1997. The partial duration series method in regional index-flood modeling. Water Resources Research 33: 737-746.
28. Martins ES, Stedinger JR. 2001. Generalized maximum likelihood Pareto-Poisson estimators for partial duration series. Water Resources Research 37(10): 2551-2557.
29. Martín-Vide J, Sánchez-Lorenzo A, López-Bustins JA, Cordobilla MJ, García-Manuel A, Raso JM. 2008. Torrential rainfall in northeast of the iberian Peninsula: synoptic patterns and WeMO influence. Advances in Science and Research 2: 99-105.
30. Meehl GA, Zwiers F, Evans J, Knutson Th, Mearns L, Whetton P. 2000. Trends in extreme weather and climate events: issues related to modeling extremes in projections of future climate change. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 81(3): 427-436.
31. Méndez FJ, Menéndez M, Luceño A, Losada IJ. 2006. Estimation of the long-term variability of extreme significant wave height using a time-dependent Peak Over Threshold (POT) model. Journal of Geophysical Research C: Oceans 111(7): C07024, DOI: 10.1029/2005JC003344.
32. Nadarajah S. 2005. Extremes of daily rainfall in West Central Florida. Climatic Change 69: 325-342.
33. Nogaj M, Yioui P, Parey S, Malek F, Naveau P. 2006. Amplitude and frequency of temperature extremes over the North Atlantic region. Geophysical Research Letters 33: L10801, DOI: 10.1029/2005GL024251.
34. Parey S, Malek F, Laurent C, Dacunha-Castelle D. 2007. Trends and climate evolution: statistical approach for very high temperatures in France. Climatic Change 81: 331-352.
35. Pujol N, Neppel L, Sabatier R. 2007. A multivariate regional test for trend detection in extreme rainfall: the case of extreme daily rainfall in the French Mediterranean area. Water Resources Research 44(8): W08419, DOI: 10.1029/2007WR006268.
36. Rao AR, Hamed KH. 2000. Flood Frequency Analysis. CRC Press: Boca Ratón, FL.
37. Reiss R-D, Thomas M. 1997. Statistical Analysis of Extreme Values. Birkhäuser: Basel, Boston, MA, Berlin.
38. R Development Core Team. 2010. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing: Vienna. Available online at [accessed 2010].
39. Smith RL. 1989. Extreme value analysis of environmental time series: an application to trend detection in ground-level ozone. Statistical Science 4: 367-393.
40. Smith RL. 1999. Trends in rainfall extremes. Unpublished paper. Available at [accessed 2010].
41. Stephenson AG. 2002. evd: extreme value distributions. R News 2(2): 31-32. Accessible online at [accessed 2010].
42. Valadares-Tavares L, Evaristo da Silva J. 1983. Partial duration series method revisited. Journal of Hydrology 64: 1-14.
43. van Montfort MAJ, Witter JV. 1986. The generalized Pareto distribution applied to rainfall depths. Hydrological Sciences Journal 31(22): 151-162.
44. Vicente-Serrano SM, Beguería S, López-Moreno JI, Kenawy AMEl, Angulo Martínez M. 2009. Daily atmospheric circulation events and extreme precipitation risk in Northeast Spain: the role of the North Atlantic Oscillation, Western Mediterranean Oscillation, and Mediterranean Oscillation. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres 114: D08106, DOI: 10.1029/2008JD011492.
45. Vicente-Serrano SM, Beguería S, López-Moreno JI, García-Vera MA, Stepanek P. 2010. A complete daily precipitation database for North-East Spain: reconstruction, quality control and homogeneity. International Journal of Climatology 30(8): 1146-1163.
46. Wang QJ. 1991. The POT model described by the Generalized Pareto distribution with Poisson arrival rate. Journal of Hydrology 129: 263-280.
47. Yiou P, Ribereau P, Naveau P, Nogaj M, Brázdil R. 2006. Statistical analysis of floods in Bohemia (Czech Republic) since 1825. Hydrological Sciences Journal 51: 930-945.