Extreme index trends of daily gridded rainfall dataset (1960–2017) in Taiwan

Abstract

AbstractPrevious lectures have shown that to effectively explore Taiwan’s climate change or other relevant topics, long-term and stable observation datasets are required. We introduce the high-resolution grided precipitation dataset (TCCIP_PR), which was constructed by the Taiwan Climate Change projection and adaptation Information Platform (TCCIP) program from thousands of station records. Although, a high spatial-time relationship exists between the TCCIP_PR and the stations, a large uncertainty occurs over the complex terrain on the southwest windward side during the summer, due to sparse stations. To better understand the change in the extreme rainfall trends, we analyze 9 suitable indices from the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). Our result show that the extreme rainfall intensity and frequency have continuously increased for a long time, and the consecutive dry days have decreased in recent decades, particularly over southwest Taiwan. The regime change evaluations agree that the precipitation characteristics were amplified and become more unpredictable from the early (1960–2002) to the late (2003–2017) period. For future applications or research, the calculated results of the extreme indices can be found in the printed documentation and the online retrieval system.