CADTEP: A new daily quality-controlled and homogenized climate database for Catalonia (1950-2021)

New daily minimum temperature (TN), maximum temperature (TX) and precipitation amount (PPT) database CADTEP (CAtalan Daily TEmperature and Precipitation data set) has been developed for Catalonia, Spain. The source dataset consists of the available climate records from Catalonia provided by the State Meteorology Agency of Spain (AEMET) and the Catalan Meteorological Service (SMC). We selected the long and fairly complete records and created further long series by merging the records of nearby stations. Finally, 26 TN, 26 TX and 72 PPT time series covering the period 1950-2021 have been accepted for CADTEP from the several hundreds of, but mostly much shorter time series. This database has sufficiently dense time series to reach accurate estimates of regional climate variability. CADTEP time series were subjected to thorough quality control and time series homogenization. In the quality control, many shorter series were still in use. Both in quality control and time series homogenization, several series surrounding Catalonia, but close to the borders, were also considered to achieve a higher data accuracy in CADTEP. The homogenization was performed with ACMANTv5.1. In this new version of ACMANT, metadata dates pointing on likely occurrences of non-climatic changes (breaks) are contemplated in the homogenization as sure break positions. Finally, we examined the trend and variability of TN, TX and PPT over 1950-2021 using CADTEP. Differences between the use of homogenized and raw data, as well as between the inclusion and exclusion of metadata use in the homogenization procedure were controlled. The most important conclusions are related to the trend analysis, namely the speed of the warming of summer TX is faster than in other seasons, faster than the warming of TN in general, and the triple of the mean global warming speed.

Automated summary

In order to study climate variability in Catalonia, the CADTEP database was developed, which consists of 26 TN, 26 TX, and 72 PPT time series covering the period 1950-2021. The database provides accurate estimates of regional climate variability and has undergone thorough quality control and time series homogenization.