Tanguy, M.; Dixon, H.; Prosdocimi, I.; Morris, D. G.; Keller, V. D. J.

Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2015) [CEH-GEAR]

https://doi.org/10.5285/33604ea0-c238-4488-813d-0ad9ab7c51ca Cite this dataset

1 km gridded estimates of daily and monthly rainfall for Great-Britain and Northern Ireland (together with approximately 3000 km2 of catchment in the Republic of Ireland) from 1890 to 2015. The rainfall estimates are derived from the Met Office national database of observed precipitation. To derive the estimates, monthly and daily (when complete month available) precipitation totals from the UK rain gauge network are used. The natural neighbour interpolation methodology, including a normalisation step based on average annual rainfall, was used to generate the daily and monthly estimates. The estimated rainfall on a given day refers to the rainfall amount precipitated in 24 hours between 9am on that day until 9am on the following day. The CEH-GEAR dataset has been developed according to the guidance provided in BS 7843-4:2012.

Publication date: 2016-11-04

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Licence terms and conditions apply

Format of the dataset : netCDF

You must cite: Tanguy, M.; Dixon, H.; Prosdocimi, I.; Morris, D. G.; Keller, V. D. J. (2016). Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2015) [CEH-GEAR]. NERC Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/33604ea0-c238-4488-813d-0ad9ab7c51ca

 

Where/When

Study area
Temporal extent
1890-01-01    to    2015-12-31

Supplemental information

This dataset is a supplement to:

Keller, V. D. J., Tanguy, M., Prosdocimi, I., Terry, J. A., Hitt, O., Cole, S. J., Fry, M., Morris, D. G., and Dixon, H. (2015). CEH-GEAR: 1 km resolution daily and monthly areal rainfall estimates for the UK for hydrological use, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., 8, 83-112.
https://doi.org/10.5194/essdd-8-83-2015

This dataset is referenced in:

Lewis, E., Quinn, N., Blenkinsop, S., Fowler, H. J., Freer, J., Tanguy, M., … Woods, R. (2018). A rule based quality control method for hourly rainfall data and a 1 km resolution gridded hourly rainfall dataset for Great Britain: CEH-GEAR1hr. Journal of Hydrology, 564, 930–943
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.07.034
Crooks, S. M., & Kay, A. L. (2015). Simulation of river flow in the Thames over 120 years: Evidence of change in rainfall-runoff response? Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 4, 172–195.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2015.05.014
Harrigan, S., Prudhomme, C., Parry, S., Smith, K., & Tanguy, M. (2018). Benchmarking ensemble streamflow prediction skill in the UK. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 22(3), 2023–2039.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-2023-2018
Ascott, M. J., Marchant, B. P., Macdonald, D., McKenzie, A. A., & Bloomfield, J. P. (2017). Improved understanding of spatio-temporal controls on regional scale groundwater flooding using hydrograph analysis and impulse response functions. Hydrological Processes, 31(25), 4586–4599.
https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.11380
Bell, V. A., Kay, A. L., Rudd, A. C., & Davies, H. N. (2018). The MaRIUS-G2G datasets: Grid-to-Grid model estimates of flow and soil moisture for Great Britain using observed and climate model driving data. Geoscience Data Journal, 5(2), 63–72.
https://doi.org/10.1002/gdj3.55
Nesbitt, A., Dorling, S., & Lovett, A. (2018). A suitability model for viticulture in England and Wales: opportunities for investment, sector growth and increased climate resilience. Journal of Land Use Science, 13(4), 414–438.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1747423x.2018.1537312
Simpson, I. R., & McCarthy, M. P. (2018). Structural and sampling uncertainty in observed UK daily precipitation extremes derived from an intercomparison of gridded data sets. International Journal of Climatology, 39(1), 128–142.
https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5789
Parsons, D. J., Rey, D., Tanguy, M., & Holman, I. P. (2019). Regional variations in the link between drought indices and reported agricultural impacts of drought. Agricultural Systems, 173, 119–129.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.02.015

Provenance & quality

The rainfall estimates are derived from the Met Office national database of observed precipitations. To derive the monthly estimates, monthly and daily (when complete month availabe) precipitation totals from the UK raingauge network are used. An additional quality control step (data already quality controlled by the Met Office) was introduced to check events greater than the 200 year return period. The natural neighbour interpolation methodology, including a normalisation step based on average annual rainfall (SAAR61-90), was used to generate the daily and monthly rainfall grids. The daily grids are adjusted so that the monthly totals calculated from those are in agreement with the monthly grids. As an indicator of the quality of the estimates, the dataset also contains for each grid generated a grid containing the distance to the closest raingauge used to interpolate the grid point. A grid containing the number of missing estimates for each year is also provided. The CEH-GEAR dataset has been developed according to the guidance provided in BS 7843-4:2012.

This version of the CEH-GEAR dataset differs from the previous version (1890-2014) only by temporal coverage. That is, previous years' data have not been modified.

Correspondence/contact details

Dr Maliko Tanguy
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Maclean Building, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford
Wallingford
Oxfordshire
OX10 8BB
United Kingdom
enquiries@ceh.ac.uk

Authors

Tanguy, M.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
ORCID iD icon https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1516-6834
Dixon, H.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
ORCID iD icon https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7415-063X
Prosdocimi, I.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
ORCID iD icon https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8565-094X
Morris, D. G.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Keller, V. D. J.
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Other contacts

Custodian
Environmental Information Data Centre
eidc@ceh.ac.uk
Publisher
NERC Environmental Information Data Centre
eidc@ceh.ac.uk

Spatial

Spatial representation type
Raster
Spatial reference system
OSGB 1936 / British National Grid
EPSG::4188
OSNI 1952 / Irish National Grid

Tags

Topic categories
Climatology / Meteorology / Atmosphere
Keywords
Climate and climate change,  United Kingdom
INSPIRE Theme
Meteorological geographical features