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]

Name: Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2015) [CEH-GEAR]
Published: 2016-11-04
License: https://eidc.ceh.ac.uk/licences/CEH-GEAR-1890-2015/plain

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

THIS DATASET HAS BEEN SUPERSEDED. The latest version is Gridded estimates of daily and monthly areal rainfall for the United Kingdom (1890-2019) [CEH-GEAR]

Data has been updated to include data for 2016 and 2017

If you need access to this archived version, please contact the EIDC

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

17 citations

Where/When

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

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.

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

Coxon, G., Freer, J., Lane, R., Dunne, T., Knoben, W. J. M., Howden, N. J. K., … Woods, R. (2019). DECIPHeR v1: Dynamic fluxEs and ConnectIvity for Predictions of HydRology. Geoscientific Model Development, 12(6), 2285–2306.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-2285-2019

Rust, W., Holman, I., Bloomfield, J., Cuthbert, M., & Corstanje, R. (2019). Understanding the potential of climate teleconnections to project future groundwater drought. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 23(8), 3233–3245.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-3233-2019

Gnann, S.J., Woods, R. A., & Howden, N.J.K. (2019). Is There a Baseflow Budyko Curve? Water Resources Research, 55(4), 2838–2855.

https://doi.org/10.1029/2018wr024464

Afzal, M., & Ragab, R. (2019). Drought Risk under Climate and Land Use Changes: Implication to Water Resource Availability at Catchment Scale. Water, 11(9), 1790.

https://doi.org/10.3390/w11091790

Kay, A. L., Bell, V. A., Guillod, B. P., Jones, R. G., & Rudd, A. C. (2018). National-scale analysis of low flow frequency: historical trends and potential future changes. Climatic Change, 147(3-4), 585–599.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2145-y

Gnann, S.J., Howden, N.J.K., & Woods, R.A. (2020). Hydrological signatures describing the translation of climate seasonality into streamflow seasonality. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 24(2), 561–580.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-561-2020

Wendt, D.E., Van Loon, A.F., Bloomfield, J.P., & Hannah, D.M. (2020). Asymmetric impact of groundwater use on groundwater droughts. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 24(10), 4853–4868.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4853-2020

Kay, A.L., Davies, H.N., Lane, R. A., Rudd, A.C., & Bell, V.A. (2021). Grid-based simulation of river flows in Northern Ireland: Model performance and future flow changes. In Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (Vol. 38, p. 100967). Elsevier BV.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2021.100967

Correspondence/contact details

Dr Maliko Tanguy

UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Maclean Building, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford
Wallingford
Oxfordshire
OX10 8BB
UNITED KINGDOM

enquiries@ceh.ac.uk