Climate trend atlas of Europe based on observations, 1891-1990

by Christian-Dietrich Schönwiese

Climate varies on all scales of time and space and this problem is a matter of intensive discussion in both science and public affairs. Whereas the reason (natural and anthropogenic) of climate change are various, complicated and not clearly understood, there is much observational data available on climate change. However, these data need proper statistical analysis to become informative and applicable. Focussed on the industrial period of the past 100 years in Europe, this Atlas provides this observational-statistical information using the concept of selected climate element (temperature, precipitation, humidity, pressure) change charts specified for different months or seasons of the year, including tests of statistical confidence. There are, of course, a number of problems in detail: reliability and accuracy of data, time series homogeneity, adequate spatial interpolation, graphical presentation and so on. This is outlined in an introductory text which also summarizes the main findi