The rainfall regime and its uncertainty in Valencia and Larnaca

International audienceThe Most Expected Rainfall Regime ? MERR in a certain region is composed of various parameters regarding the annual rainfall regime in that region. The present study examines several parameters of the MERR, such as: the rainfall TOTAL, the Date of Accumulated Percentage-DAP, the Rainy Season Length-RSL, the Number of Rain-Spells-NRS, the Rain-Spell Yield-RSY, the ratio between Average and Median rainfall-AMED, the relationship between accumulated precipitation and the number of rain-spells and the Dry-Spell Distribution-DSD. Two stations at the two sides of the Mediterranean basin, Valencia and Larnaca, have been used to illustrate the distribution of the above parameters across the Mediterranean. The main conclusion of the study is that the rainfall regime at Larnaca is less uncertain as compared with the regime in Valencia. This is probably due to the fact that rainfalls are completely absent during the summer in Larnaca, which better suits the definition of a Mediterranean climate than that of Valencia

Various aspects of dryness in Serbia

In this manuscript we analyze daily rainfall observational records from 22 weather stations located in different regions over Serbia in the period 1949–2007. We examine the characteristics of dryness by using the Dry Days Since Last Rain – DDSLR approach. In order to quantify the DDSLR we use three metrics for each weather station: severity, consistency and uncertainty. Results show that these three metrics vary independently of each other as well as that there is a weak relationship between them. Weather stations in the northern parts of Serbia, with moderate annual amount of rainfall less than 650 mm, present higher dryness conditions whereas the lowest values were obtained for central parts in Serbia. Limited number of studies examined drying tendencies in Serbia and neighboring countries so far. We consider Serbia as an area of particular interest because of its position in a frontier between Mediterranean conditions on the southwest and the continental inland

Extreme precipitation related to circulation types for four case studies over the Eastern Mediterranean

International audienceThe analysis of the links between the extreme precipitation and the associated atmospheric conditions through an aloft circulation type approach at the 500-hPa geopotential level, for the time period of 1958?2000, is the main motivation for the present study. Four stations in the eastern Mediterranean (17.5° E to 37.5° E and 30° N to 40° N) were selected as separate case studies. The extreme precipitation conditions were defined by the two most widely used indices: the 90th and 95th percentiles. It was found that two cyclonic types (C ? with its centre over the station and Cwsw ? with its centre at the WSW of the station) were mainly associated with extreme rainfall conditions for all the selected stations. Generally, these circulation types are deepening during days with extreme precipitation in comparison to the general mean field of the type

What's Behind the Mask: Estimating Uncertainty in Image-to-Image Problems

Estimating uncertainty in image-to-image networks is an important task, particularly as such networks are being increasingly deployed in the biological and medical imaging realms. In this paper, we introduce a new approach to this problem based on masking. Given an existing image-to-image network, our approach computes a mask such that the distance between the masked reconstructed image and the masked true image is guaranteed to be less than a specified threshold, with high probability. The mask thus identifies the more certain regions of the reconstructed image. Our approach is agnostic to the underlying image-to-image network, and only requires triples of the input (degraded), reconstructed and true images for training. Furthermore, our method is agnostic to the distance metric used. As a result, one can use $L_p$-style distances or perceptual distances like LPIPS, which contrasts with interval-based approaches to uncertainty. Our theoretical guarantees derive from a conformal calibration procedure. We evaluate our mask-based approach to uncertainty on image colorization, image completion, and super-resolution tasks, demonstrating high quality performance on each

Spatial variability of precipitation regimes over Turkey

Turkish annual precipitation regimes are analysed to provide large-scale perspective and redefine precipitation regions. Monthly total precipitation data are employed for 107 stations (1963–2002). Precipitation regime shape (seasonality) and magnitude (size) are classified using a novel multivariate methodology. Six shape and five magnitude classes are identified, which exhibit clear spatial structure. A composite (shape and magnitude) regime classification reveals dominant controls on spatial variability of precipitation. Intra-annual timing and magnitude of precipitation is highly variable due to seasonal shifts in Polar and Subtropical zones and physiographic factors. Nonetheless, the classification methodology is shown to be a powerful tool that identifies physically-interpretable precipitation regions: (1) coastal regimes for Marmara, coastal Aegean, Mediterranean and Black Sea; (2) transitional regimes in continental Aegean and Southeast Anatolia; and (3) inland regimes across central and Eastern Anatolia. This research has practical implications for understanding water resources, which are under ever growing pressure in Turkey

Quantifying uncertainties in precipitation: a case study from Greece

The main objective of the present study was the examination and the quantification of the uncertainties in the precipitation time series over the Greek area, for a 42-year time period. The uncertainty index applied to the rainfall data is a combination (total) of the departures of the rainfall season length, of the median data of the accumulated percentages and of the total amounts of rainfall. Results of the study indicated that all the stations are characterized, on an average basis, by medium to high uncertainty. The stations that presented an increasing rainfall uncertainty were the ones located mainly to the continental parts of the study region. From the temporal analysis of the uncertainty index, it was demonstrated that the greatest percentage of the years, for all the stations time-series, was characterized by low to high uncertainty (intermediate categories of the index). Most of the results of the uncertainty index for the Greek region are similar to the corresponding results of various stations all over the European region

Palaeolimnological evidence for an east-west climate see-saw in the Mediterranean since AD 900

During the period of instrumental records, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has strongly influenced inter-annual precipitation variations in the western Mediterranean, while some eastern parts of the basin have shown an anti-phase relationship in precipitation and atmospheric pressure. Here we explore how the NAO and other atmospheric circulation modes operated over the longer timescales of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) and Little Ice Age (LIA). High-resolution palaeolimnological evidence from opposite ends of the Mediterranean basin, supplemented by other palaeoclimate data, is used to track shifts in regional hydro-climatic conditions. Multiple geochemical, sedimentological, isotopic and palaeoecological proxies from Estanya and Montcortés lakes in northeast Spain and Nar lake in central Turkey have been cross-correlated at decadal time intervals since AD 900. These dryland lakes capture sensitively changes in precipitation/evaporation (P/E) balance by adjustments in water level and salinity, and are especially valuable for reconstructing variability over decadal-centennial timescales. Iberian lakes show lower water levels and higher salinities during the 11th to 13th centuries synchronous with the MCA and generally more humid conditions during the 'LIA' (15th-19th centuries). This pattern is also clearly evident in tree-ring records from Morocco and from marine cores in the western Mediterranean Sea. In the eastern Mediterranean, palaeoclimatic records from Turkey, Greece and the Levant show generally drier hydro-climatic conditions during the LIA and a wetter phase during the MCA. This implies that a bipolar climate see-saw has operated in the Mediterranean for the last 1100. years. However, while western Mediterranean aridity appears consistent with persistent positive NAO state during the MCA, the pattern is less clear in the eastern Mediterranean. Here the strongest evidence for higher winter season precipitation during the MCA comes from central Turkey in the northeastern sector of the Mediterranean basin. This in turn implies that the LIA/MCA hydro-climatic pattern in the Mediterranean was determined by a combination of different climate modes along with major physical geographical controls, and not by NAO forcing alone, or that the character of the NAO and its teleconnections have been non-stationary. © 2011 Elsevier B.V