Comment on essd-2021-339

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper we present EMO-5 (“European Meteorological Observations”, spatial resolution of 5 km), a European high-resolution, (sub-)daily, multi-variable meteorological dataset built on historical and real-time observations obtained by integrating data from 18 964 ground weather stations, four high-resolution regional observational grids (i.e. CombiPrecip, ZAMG – INCA, EURO4M-APGD, and CarpatClim), and one global reanalysis (ERA-Interim/Land). EMO-5 includes the following at daily resolution: total precipitation, temperatures (minimum and maximum), wind speed, solar radiation, and water vapour pressure. In addition, EMO-5 also makes available 6-hourly precipitation and mean temperature data. The raw observations from the ground weather stations underwent a set of quality controls before SPHEREMAP and Yamamoto interpolation methods were applied in order to estimate for each 5×5 km grid cell the variable value and its affiliated uncertainty, respectively. The quality of the EMO-5 precipitation data was evaluated through (1) comparison with two regional high-resolution datasets (i.e. seNorge2 and seNorge2018), (2) analysis of 15 heavy precipitation events, and (3) examination of the interpolation uncertainty. Results show that EMO-5 successfully captured 80 % of the heavy precipitation events, and that it is of comparable quality to a regional high-resolution dataset. The availability of the uncertainty fields increases the transparency of the dataset and hence the possible usage. EMO-5 (version 1) covers the time period from 1990 to 2019, with a near real-time release of the latest gridded observations foreseen with version 2. As a product of Copernicus, the EU's Earth Observation Programme, the EMO-5 dataset is free and open, and can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.2905/0BD84BE4-CEC8-4180-97A6-8B3ADAAC4D26 (Thiemig et al., 2020).

Authors 12

1. Vera Thiemig

   European Commission · Joint Research Centre

   Affiliation as printed

   Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, 21027, Italy

2. Goncalo Gomes

   European Commission · Joint Research Centre

   Affiliation as printed

   Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, 21027, Italy

3. Jon O. Skà ̧ien

   European Commission · Joint Research Centre

   Affiliation as printed

   Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, 21027, Italy

4. Markus Ziese

   Deutscher Wetterdienst

   Affiliation as printed

   Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, 63067, Germany

5. Armin Rauthe-Schöch

   Deutscher Wetterdienst

   Affiliation as printed

   Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, 63067, Germany

6. Elke Rustemeier

   Deutscher Wetterdienst

   Affiliation as printed

   Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, 63067, Germany

7. Kira Rehfeldt

   Deutscher Wetterdienst

   Affiliation as printed

   Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, 63067, Germany

8. Jakub P. Walawender

   Philipps University of Marburg · Deutscher Wetterdienst

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Geography, Philipps University of Marburg, Marburg, 35032, Germany

   Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, 63067, Germany

9. Christine Kolbe

   Philipps University of Marburg · Deutscher Wetterdienst

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Geography, Philipps University of Marburg, Marburg, 35032, Germany

   Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, 63067, Germany

10. Damien Pichon
    Affiliation as printed

    Kisters France SAS, Rueil-Malmaison, 92500, France

11. Christoph Schweim Aachen Kisters AG

    Kisters (Germany)

    Affiliation as printed

    Kisters AG, Aachen, 52076, Germany

12. Peter Salamon

    European Commission · Joint Research Centre

    Affiliation as printed

    Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, 21027, Italy