Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 10 7 2010 10.5194/nhess-10-1563-2010 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/1563/2010/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/1563/2010/nhess-10-1563-2010.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/1563/2010/nhess-10-1563-2010.pdf 1563 1574 2010-07-16 Growing season precipitation in Finland under recent and projected climate J. S. Ylhäisi jussi.s.ylhaisi@helsinki.fi H. Tietäväinen, P. Peltonen-Sainio A. Venäläinen J. Eklund J. Räisänen K. Jylhä Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 48, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland Finnish Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 503, 00101 Helsinki, Finland MTT Agrifood Research Finland, 31600 Jokioinen, Finland The past and projected future precipitation sum in May–September for two areas in Finland, one located in the south-west (SW) and the other in the north-east (NE), is studied using 13 regional climate simulations and three observational datasets. The conditions in the present-day climate for agricultural crop production are far more favourable in the south-western part of the country than the more continental north-eastern Finland. Based on a new high-resolution observational precipitation dataset for Finland (<i>FMI_grid</i>), with a resolution of 10&times;10 km, the only statistically significant past long-term (1908–2008) precipitation tendencies in the two study regions are positive. Differences between <i>FMI_grid</i> and two other observational datasets during 1961–2000 are rather large in the NE, whereas in the SW the datasets agree better. 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