Characterization of Precipitation Concentration Indicators and Their Variations in a Central European Region

Abstract

AbstractIn recent years, climate change affected several regions over the globe by changing the temporal and spatial pattern of precipitation, increasing the temperature, and causing severe droughts and floods. In this regard, understanding the changes and characteristics of precipitation in different aspects is an urgent practice. In this study, by employing four precipitation concentration indices, including CI (concentration index), PCI (precipitation concentration index), PCP (precipitation concentration period), and PCD (precipitation concentration degree), various features of precipitation concentration over union of Polish territory and the Vistula and Odra basins in Central Europe are investigated. For this aim, a 2 km × 2 km regional gridded dataset was employed from 1990–2019 at daily time steps. Results show that the number of rainy days varies between 160 and 250 days. In general, the effects of sea and high elevation on precipitation concentration are vivid in the south (mountainous area) and north (Baltic Sea). Over the foothills of the mountainous area, CI has a more extensive range than other areas; this indicates that precipitation over these regions happened over fewer days. The variation of PCI is tiny and shows that almost all months contribute to the annual precipitation. PCP, by varying between 40˚ to 130˚, shows that the most considerable amount of precipitation in the short periods occurs between February and May. PCD indicates that precipitation is widely dispersed. These indices have shown that almost precipitation is consistently distributed over the year, and there are no significant changes in these indices. However, these indices have different patterns relative to the central parts of the region over the northern and southern parts.