Creation of a representative climatological database for Hungary from 1870 to 2020

Climate studies, in particular those related to climate change, require long, high-quality, controlled data sets that are representative both spatially and temporally. Changing the conditions in which the measurements were taken, for example relocating the station, or a change in the frequency and time of measurements, or in the instruments used may result in an fractured time series. To avoid these problems, data errors and inhomogeneities are eliminated for Hungary and data gaps are filled in by using the MASH (Multiple Analysis of Series for Homogenization, Szentimrey) homogenization procedure. Homogenization of the data series raises the problem that how to homogenize long and short data series together within the same process, since the meteorological observation network was upgraded significantly in the last decades. It is possible to solve these problems with the method MASH due to its adequate mathematical principles for such purposes. The solution includes the synchronization of the common parts’ inhomogeneities within three (or more) different MASH processing of the three (or more) datasets with different lengths. Then, the homogenized station data series are interpolated to the whole area of Hungary, to a 0.1 degree regular grid. For this purpose, the MISH (Meteorological Interpolation based on Surface Homogenized Data Basis; Szentimrey and Bihari) program system is used. The MISH procedure was developed specifically for the interpolation of various meteorological elements. Hungarian time series of daily average temperature and precipitation sum for the period 1870-2020 were used in this study, thus providing the longest homogenized, gridded daily data sets in the region with up-to-date information already included.

Supported by the ÚNKP-20-3 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation andTechnology from the source of the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund.