A new retrospective satellite-based precipitation dataset is constructed as a climate data record for hydrological and climate studies. Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks – Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR) provides daily and 0.25° rainfall estimates for the latitude band 60°S–60°N for the period of 01/01/1983 to 12/31/2012 (delayed present). PERSIANN-CDR is aimed at addressing the need for a consistent, long-term, high-resolution and global precipitation dataset for studying the changes and trends in daily precipitation, especially extreme precipitation events, due to climate change and natural variability. PERSIANN-CDR is generated from the PERSIANN algorithm using GridSat-B1 infrared data. It is adjusted using the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) monthly product to maintain consistency of the two datasets at 2.5° monthly scale throughout the entire record. Three case studies for testing the efficacy of the dataset against available observations and satellite products are reported. The verification study over Hurricane Katrina (2005) shows that PERSIANN-CDR has good agreement with the Stage IV radar data, noting that PERSIANN-CDR has more complete spatial coverage than the radar data. In addition, the comparison of PERSIANN-CDR against gauge observations during the 1986 Sydney flood in Australia reaffirms the capability of PERSIANN-CDR to provide reasonably accurate rainfall estimates. Moreover, the Probability Density Function (PDF) of PERSIANN CDR over the Contiguous United States exhibits good agreement with the PDFs of the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) gridded gauge data and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) product. The results indicate high potential for using PERSIANN-CDR for long-term hydro-climate studies in regional and global scales.

Spatial-seasonal variability and temporal trends has essential importance to climatic prediction and analysis. The aim of this research is the seasonal variations and temporal trends in the Iran were predicted by using rainfall series. The exploratory-confirmatory method, and seasonal time series procedure (STSP), temporal trend (TT), seasonal least squares (SLS) and spatial (GIS) methods (STSP¬-SLS-GIS) were employed to bring to light rainfall spatial-seasonal variability and temporal trends (SSVTT). To explore the spatial-seasonal variability and temporal trends during the period over 1975 to 2014 at 140 stations. To investigate the spatial-seasonal variability and temporal trends amount of each series was studied using ArcGIS 10.3 on different time scale. New climatic findings for the region: the investigates and predictions revealed that: (a) range of monthly and seasonal changes of rainfall tends to be highest (increasing trend) during winter (Winter Seasonal Index or WUSI=137.83 mm); (b) lowest (decreasing trend) during summer (Summer Seasonal Index or SUSI=20.8l mm) and (c) the coefficient of rainfall seasonal pattern variations in winter to 5.94 mm, in spring to 11.13 mm, in summer to 4.44 mm and in autumn to 8.05 mm with seasonality being the most effective of all. Mean annual rainfall changed from 51.45 mm (at Bafgh) to 1834.9 mm (at Bandar Anzali). Maximum decrease in annual rainfall was obtained at Miandeh Jiroft (-143.83%) and minimum at Abali (-0.013%) station. The most apparent year of variation was 2007 in annual rainfall.

Spatiotemporal precipitation trend analysis provides valuable information for water management decision-making. Satellite-based precipitation products with high spatial and temporal resolution and long records, as opposed to temporally and spatially sparse rain gauge networks, are a suitable alternative to analyze precipitation trends over Iran. This study analyzes the trends in annual, seasonal, and monthly precipitation along with the contribution of each season and month in the annual precipitation over Iran for the 1983–2018 period. For the analyses, the Mann–Kendall test is applied to the Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks-Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR) estimates. The results of annual, seasonal, and monthly precipitation trends indicate that the significant decreases in the monthly precipitation trends in February over the western (March over the western and central-eastern) regions of Iran cause significant effects o...

This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of a great variety of state-ofthe- art precipitation datasets against gauge observations over the Karun basin in southwestern Iran. In particular, we consider (a) gauge-interpolated datasets (GPCCv8, CRU TS4.01, PREC/L, and CPC-Unified), (b) multi-source products (PERSIANN-CDR, CHIRPS2.0, MSWEP V2, HydroGFD2.0, and SM2RAIN-CCI), and (c) reanalyses (ERA-Interim, ERA5, CFSR, and JRA-55). The spatiotemporal performance of each product is evaluated against monthly precipitation observations from 155 gauges distributed across the basin during the period 2000–2015. This way, we find that overall the GPCCv8 dataset agrees best with the measurements. Most datasets show significant underestimations, which are largest for the interpolated datasets. These underestimations are usually smallest at low altitudes and increase towards more mountainous areas, although there is large spread across the products. Interestingly, no overall performance difference can be found between precipitation datasets for which gauge observations from Karun basin were used, versus products that were derived without these measurements, except in the case of GPCCv8. In general, our findings highlight remarkable differences between state-of-the-art precipitation products over regions with comparatively sparse gauge density, such as Iran. Revealing the best-performing datasets and their remaining weaknesses, we provide guidance for monitoring and modelling applications which rely on high-quality precipitation input.