PPDIST: Global Precipitation Probability Climatologies, 1979–2018

PPDIST provides global high-resolution climatologies of precipitation occurrence and peak intensity. The dataset offers daily and 3-hourly probability distributions at a 0.1-degree spatial resolution. Hylke E. Beck and colleagues published this observation-based collection covering the period from 1979 to 2018.

Use Cases

• Modeling precipitation extremes based on peak intensity climatologies.
• Analyzing temporal precipitation patterns based on 3-hourly probability distributions.
• Validating climate models based on global, observation-based climatologies.
• Studying hydrological cycles based on high-resolution precipitation occurrence data.

Strengths

• Global coverage at a high 0.1-degree spatial resolution.
• Long temporal coverage spanning 40 years from 1979 to 2018.
• Includes both daily and 3-hourly temporal scales for analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Hylke E. Beck et al., published in Scientific Data.

Collection Method

Observation-based climatologies derived from source data.

Time Range

1979–2018

Geography

Global