Total Precipitation

Precipitation is an essential climate variable making the Total Precipitation a fundamental index for following climate variability and change. This Index is the only one in the Total precipitation Hazard type of the Wet and Dry category of the classification.

A higher/lower Index value indicates a wetter/drier climate. Change (i.e difference relative to an average over a 30-year reference period) in Total precipitation is often used as a headline index in regional climate change assessments whereas changes in seasonal means are relevant for seasonal changes evaluation and sectoral applications.

Definition

The cumulated precipitation over a period (mm/period). In weather and climate models total precipitation is the flux of water equivalent (rain or snow) reaching the land surface (expressed as kg⋅m⁻²⋅sec⁻² and converted to mm/day). This Index is usually presented as annual, seasonal or monthly cumulated values over the considered period.

Data Sources

The data was assembled on behalf of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) based on climate projections hosted on the C3S Climate Data Store (CDS). The Index is calculated from a set of nine bias-corrected multi-model simulations from the EURO-CORDEX experiment. These simulations have a spatial resolution of 0.25°x0.25°, a 3-hourly output, and cover scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. More information about the dataset can be found in the corresponding CDS documentation resources.

Supporting Information

Further information about this application can be found in the Product User Guide (PUG) of the application in the documentation resources of the CDS. Related information also be found in other sections of the EEA site:

• The Index based interactive EEA report: Wet and dry — mean precipitation (link).

Data download

The aggregated data shown on the map can be downloaded as csv files.