Climate change analysis of precipitation data for North Rhine-Westphalia

In order to be able to make regionally differentiated statements on the past and the projected future precipitation development in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), measurements and climate model results have been analysed. The measurement data comprised data from 750 stations for the period 1950–2008. The climate change projections were the results of the three regional climate models CLM, WETTREG and STAR2. The results shown here give an overview on the past and projected future change of several precipitation statistics in NRW. Aside from the usual aggregated values (annual, semi-annual and monthly amounts of total precipitation) the development of heavy rainfall statistics was also examined on the basis of daily values as well as shorter time steps in the measurement data.