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Three centuries of daily precipitation in Padua, Italy, 1713–2018: history, relocations, gaps, homogeneity and raw data

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Abstract

Long instrumental records are fundamental to study climate changes, but their reliability and quality have to be checked before any statistical research. Moreover, when metadata are used to solve some problems, data interpretation may change and require further work to refine the series. A thorough revision of the three-century precipitation series in Padua (1713–2018) shows that the results of previous analyses were affected by serious biases. This paper clarifies key features concerning early instruments, exposure, relocation and observational protocols. The daily analysis pointed out a number of problems, bias, irregular sampling and underestimations that have passed unobserved so far. A comparison with the parallel series of Bologna and Venice made it possible to distinguish bias from the climate signal or to reconstruct missing data. The instrumental threshold was recognized to be fundamental to determine the frequency of precipitation, but less important with respect to its amount. This paper provides a methodological example to test the goodness of long instrumental series, in particular to identify problems related to metadata and observations, which is the preliminary step to perform a sound correction and obtain a reliable series. It also includes the set of original raw data, transformed into modern units.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Historical Archive of the Astronomical Observatory, Padua, and the Marciana Library, Venice, for free consultation and the kind permission to publish documents; Baron Arch. Mario Treves de’ Bonfili for having allowed access to the Poleni house; Dr. Riccardo Guolo and Dr. Francesco Rech, ARPAV, for the ARPAV and Water Magistrate datasets.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Council-Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127, Padua, Italy

    Dario Camuffo & Antonio della Valle

  2. National Research Council-Institute of Polar Sciences, Via Torino 155, 30172, Venice Mestre, Italy

    Francesca Becherini

  3. INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, 35122, Padua, Italy

    Valeria Zanini

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  1. Dario Camuffo
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Correspondence to Dario Camuffo.

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Camuffo, D., della Valle, A., Becherini, F. et al. Three centuries of daily precipitation in Padua, Italy, 1713–2018: history, relocations, gaps, homogeneity and raw data. Climatic Change 162, 923–942 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02717-2

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