ADGEO Advances in Geosciences ADGEO Adv. Geosci. 1680-7359 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/adgeo-16-19-2008 Quantifying uncertainties in precipitation: a case study from Greece Anagnostopoulou C. 1 Tolika K. 2 Maheras P. Reiser H. Kutiel H. Department of Meteorology and Climatology, School of Geology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Greece Laboratory of Climatology, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel 09 04 2008 16 19 26 Copyright: © 2008 C. Anagnostopoulou et al. 2008 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://adgeo.copernicus.org/articles/16/19/2008/adgeo-16-19-2008.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://adgeo.copernicus.org/articles/16/19/2008/adgeo-16-19-2008.pdf

The main objective of the present study was the examination and the quantification of the uncertainties in the precipitation time series over the Greek area, for a 42-year time period. The uncertainty index applied to the rainfall data is a combination (total) of the departures of the rainfall season length, of the median data of the accumulated percentages and of the total amounts of rainfall. Results of the study indicated that all the stations are characterized, on an average basis, by medium to high uncertainty. The stations that presented an increasing rainfall uncertainty were the ones located mainly to the continental parts of the study region. From the temporal analysis of the uncertainty index, it was demonstrated that the greatest percentage of the years, for all the stations time-series, was characterized by low to high uncertainty (intermediate categories of the index). Most of the results of the uncertainty index for the Greek region are similar to the corresponding results of various stations all over the European region.

 References Alexandersson, H.: A homogeneity test applied to precipitation data. J. Climatol., 6, 661–675, 1986. Anagnostopoulou, C.:Contribution to the study of drought in the Greek area, Phd Thesis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Meteorology and Climatology, pp.219 (in greek), 2003. Anagnostopoulou, C., Maheras, P., Karacostas, T., and Vafiadis, M.: Spatial and temporal analysis of dry spells in Greece, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 74, 77–91, 2003. Bartzokas, A., Lolis, C., and Metaxas, D. A.: A study on the intra-annual variation and the spatial distribution of precipitation amount and duration over Greece on a 10 day basis, Int. J. Climatol., 23, 207–222, 2003. Champeil, A., Doré, T., and Fourbet, J. F.: Fusarium: Head blight: epidemiological origin of the effects of cultural practices on head blight attacks and the production of mycotoxins by Fusarium in wheat grains, Plant Sci., 166, 1389–1415, 2004. Fotiadi, A. K., Metaxas, D. A., and Barzokas, A.: A statistical study of precipitaiton in NW Greece, Int. J. Climatol., 19, 1221–1232, 1999. Maheras, P., Balafoutis, C., and Vafiadis, M.: Precipitation in the central Mediterranean during the last century, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 45, 209–216, 1992. Maheras, P. and Anagnostopoulou, C.: Circulation Types and their Influence on the Interannual variability and precipitation changes in Greece Mediterranean Climate-Variability and Trends, edited by: H. J. Bolle, Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 215–239, 2003. Makrogiannis, T., Santamouris, M., Papanikolaou, N., Koronaki, I., Tselepidaki, I., and Assimakopoulos, D.: The Athens urban climate experiment-temperature distribution. Klimat I Bioklimat Miast, Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, Wydawhictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego, Folia Geographica Physica 3, Lodz, 33–50, 1999. Maskey, S., Guinot, V., and Price, R. K.: Treatment of precipitation uncertainty in rainfall-runoff modeling: a fussy set approach, Advan. Water Resour., 27, 889–898, 2004. Norrant, C.: Tendances pluviometriques indictrices d'un chamgement climatique dans le basin Mediterraneee de 1950 à 2000, Edude Diagnosique, These, Universite AIX-MARSEILLE I – Université de Provence, Institut de Géographie, pp.262, 2004. Paz, S. and Kutiel, H.: Rainfall regime uncertainty (RRU) in an Eastern Mediterranean region – A methodological approach, Isr. J. Earth Sci., 52, 47–63, 2003. Philandras, C., Metaxas, D., and Nastos, P.: Urban effect on air temperature in national observatory of Athens compared to climatic variability. Procedings of the 4th National Conference of Meteorology, Climatology and Atmospheric Physics, Athens, 22–25~September~1998, 199–204 (in Greek), 1998. Smith, S., Legler, D. M., and Verzone, K. V.: Quantifying Uncertainties in NCEP Reanalyses using High-Quality Research Vessel Observations, J. Climate, 14, 4062–4072, 2001. Steineke, S. B. and Jehle, J. A.: Investigating the horizontal transmission of the Cydia pomonella granulovirus (CpGV) in a model system, Biological Control, 30, 538–545, 2004. Theoharatos, G. A. and Tselepidaki, I. G.: The distribution of rainy days in the Aegean Area, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 42, 111–116, 1990. Thorne, P. W., Parker, D. E., Christy J. R., and Mears, C. A.: Uncertainties in climate trends, Am. Meteor. Soc., 1437–1442, 2005. Tolika, K. and Maheras, P.: Spatial and temporal characteristics of wet spells in Greece, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 81, 71–85, 2005.