Analysis of precipitation extremes based on satellite (CHIRPS) and in situ dataset over Cyprus

• DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2335-8
• Publication Date: 2016-04-28T12:56:54Z
• Authors: Dimitrios Katsanos; Adrianos Retalis; Filippos Tymvios; Silas Michaelides
• Keywords: Natural hazard

A study of a daily precipitation database for the island of Cyprus is performed for a period of 30 years. A number of climatic indices for precipitation are calculated using the recently available CHIRPS dataset, on high spatial (0.05°) and temporal (daily) resolution. The same parameters for the same time period (1981–2010) are then calculated using the dense network of rain gauges of the Cyprus Department of Meteorology. The results show a quite promising performance regarding indices related to daily precipitation thresholds, resulting in high correlation scores. In the case of indices referring to number of days, it seems that the results are ambiguous, with medium or no correlation, probably related to the criteria used for the identification of a wet (rainy) day on the CHIRPS dataset.