A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF CHANGES IN PRECIPITATION REGIME IN TUSCANY

The analysis of changes in precipitation is nowadays of great interest because rainfall space-time distribution is considered one of the most important indexes in the natural climatic cycle. This study proposes an investigation of precipitation time series recorded in the region of Tuscany (Central Italy) in the period 1916-2003. Forty indexes are defined to evaluate changes in the precipitation patterns and trend detection is performed through statistical tests to assess the significance of temporal and spatial changes in the precipitation regime. The presented analysis does not show strong evidence of non-stationarity. A few indexes in a given number of stations of the analyzed territory do show a slight trend, but the significance of those trends is lost once the multiple location testing issue is considered. The complexity of the climate in central Italy, i.e. the presence of numerous feedbacks, might in fact distort or remove the consequences of global warming on the precipitation regime.