Validation of Climate Research Unit High Resolution Time-Series Rainfall Data over Three Source Region: Results of 52 Years

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to validate the rainfall data of Climate Research Unit high resolution Time-Series version 3.1 (CRU TS 3.1) with meteorological ground-based Rain Gauge (RG) measurements and determine the possibility of its integration with ground-measured rainfall. The research primarily advocates on the need for complementing ground-based datasets with CRU TS 3.1global datasets for sustainable studies in protecting the environment. The Source Region of the Yellow, Yangtse and Lancang Rivers (SRYYLR), China was taken as the study area. The data was validated by using the data from seventeen meteorological RG stations at SRYYLR. Statistical technique based on Linear Regression (LR), Cumulative Residual Series Analysis (CRSA) and Geo-Spatial techniques based on batch processing, cell statistics, map algebra, re-sampling, extraction by mask, geo-statistical interpolation and profiling along transects by interpolation of a line were used. The study revealed that although CRU TS 3.1 datasets are underestimated compared to the RG datasets, they can be efficiently and effectively be used for rainfall trend analysis with 90% level of confidence because of the analyses by different techniques revealed similar profile trends.