Past and Present Precipitations Related to Climate Changes—Methodologies and Perspectives

Abstract

A summary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Advanced Research Workshop Global Precipitations and Climate Change that reviewed the current understanding of global precipitation distribution, as related to climate evolution, on various timescales, is presented. The workshop, which took place at L'Agelonde, France, 27 Septernber-1 October 1993, was held to assess the availability and quality of data that could be used to improve the understanding of the processes determining precipitation changes through initialization and validation of existing climate models. Furthermore, several examples of the use of precipitation data were presented. A summary of the recommendations for future studies, which arose from the exchanges between the modeling and observational communities, is included.