Improved Understanding of Past Climatic Variability from Early Daily European Instrumental Sources

Climate can be defined as an ensemble of many weather phenomena. Clima tologists often use the mean (conventionally the monthly and annual mean) of weather-related parameters to describe climate. The mean value, however, is not all the climate. Climatic changes might occur if certain aspects of the distribution of extreme values change, while the mean does not. Katz and Brown (1992), for example, show from a theoretical viewpoint that in a changing climate, extreme values are determined more by changes in variability than changes in the mean. Possible changes in extreme event frequency receive considerable attention along with the global warming, because extremes directly impact human society and the economy. For most societally sensitive extremes and related changes in their vari ability, an analysis based on daily data becomes necessary. This paper considers two aspects (relative and absolute values) of extreme temperatures on a daily basis. We do not consider spells of extreme days, periods which will likely have greater socio-economic and health impacts (Kalkstein et al., 1996; Wagner, 1999), than individual extreme days.

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Improved Understanding of Past Climatic Variability from Early Daily European Instrumental Sources Guest Editorial.- I History and Correction of Long Temperature Series.- History of the Long Series of Daily Air Temperature in Padova (1725-1998).- Corrections of Systematic Errors and Data Homogenisation in the Daily Temperature Padova Series (1725-1998).- Daily Milan Temperature and Pressure Series (1763-1998): History of the Observations and Data and Metadata Recovery.- Daily Milan Temperature and Pressure Series (1763-1998): Completing and Homogenising the Data.- Daily Meteorological Observations in Cádiz - San Fernando. Analysis of the Documentary Sources and the Instrumental Data Content (1786-1996).- Daily Air Temperature and Pressure Series for Stockholm (1756-1998).- Daily Air Temperature and Pressure Series for Uppsala (1722-1998).- The Daily Temperature Record for St. Petersburg (1743-1996).- The Long-Term Daily Central Belgium Temperature (CBT) Series (1767-1998) and Early Instrumental Meteorological Observations in Belgium.- II Typical Problems with Early Thermometers and Measuring Times.- Calibration and Instrumental Errors in Early Measurements of Air Temperature.- Errors in Early Temperature Series Arising from Changes in Style of Measuring Time, Sampling Schedule and Number of Observations.- III Trends in Extreme Temperatures.- Trends of Extreme Temperatures in Europe and China Based on Daily Observations.