Recent trends reveal decreasing intensity of daily precipitation in Spain

A comprehensive analysis of the spatial and temporal variability of daily precipitation in Spain in the period 1950-2012 was carried out based on the high-resolution gridded data set SPREAD at a 5x5km spatial resolution. Temporal trends of 12 daily precipitation indices were computed by application of the Sen's slope and the Mann-Kendall tests. The spatial distribution of the trends showed (a) a global slight increase in the duration of the precipitation events, especially along the Mediterranean fringe; (b) an increase of the frequency of low precipitation events and a decrease of the frequency of high and very high events (inverse in the Mediterranean coast); and (c) a slight decrease of the intensity when considering single events (1- or 5-day duration), but a significant negative trend in mean and median precipitation when considering all the precipitation days (p>0), especially in the Mediterranean coast.