A comparison between August 1998 and 1997 rainfall shows the major changes occur in the Pacific due to El Nino effect. The difference in the large-scale pattern, however, is less well defined as that in the Pacific. Periods update Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit, University of Eastanglia, provided the GPCC with long time-series of precipitation data from numerous stations and countries. GPCC is not able to distribute station-related observational data to others in order to respect the interests of the data suppliers. The gridsize is both 2.5 by 2.5 and 1 by 1 degree geographical latitude by longitude.
All data used are quality-controlled on high level with automatic plus visual checks.
During second quarter 2000, new gridded data sets were created for the months May and June 2000. The database is presented in Tables 2 and 3. The mirror is updated once per month so far. This makes access to GPCP products much easier for European users. Table 4 shows the frequency of access to the GPCC internet pages.