INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY Int. J. Climatol. 35: 1322 – 1341 (2015) Published online 12 June 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/joc.4059 Climate of the Carpathian Region in the period 1961 – 2010: climatologies and trends of 10 variables Jonathan Spinoni, a * Sandor Szalai, b Tamás Szentimrey, c Monika Lakatos, c Zita Bihari, c Andrea Nagy, c Ákos Németh, c Tamás Kovács, c Dragan Mihic, d Milan Dacic, d Predrag Petrovic, d Aleksandra Kržiˇ c, d Johann Hiebl, e Ingeborg Auer, e Janja Milkovic, f Petr Štepánek, g Pavel Zahradnícek, g Piotr Kilar, h Danuta Limanowka, h Robert Pyrc, h Sorin Cheval, i Marius-Victor Birsan, i Alexandru Dumitrescu, i György Deak, j Monica Matei, j Igor Antolovic, k Pavol Nejedlík, l Pavel Štastný, l Peter Kajaba, l Oliver Bochnícek, l Dalibor Galo, l Katarina Mikulová, l Yurii Nabyvanets, m Oleg Skrynyk, m Svitlana Krakovska, m Natalia Gnatiuk, m Radim Tolasz, n Tiberiu Antofie, a and Jürgen Vogt, a a European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy b Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Szent Istvan University, Gödöllö, Hungary c Hungarian Meteorological Service (OMSZ), Budapest, Hungary d Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Serbia (RHMSS), Belgrade, Republic of Serbia e Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG), Vienna, Austria f Meteorological and Hydrological Service of Croatia (DHMZ), Zagreb, Croatia g Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI), Brno, Czech Republic h Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW), Warszawa, Poland i National Meteorological Administration (NMA), Bucharest, Romania j National Institute for Research and Development in Environmental Protection (INCDPM), Bucharest, Romania k Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niš, Republic of Serbia l Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMU), Bratislava, Slovakia m Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute (UHMI), Kyiv, Ukraine n Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI), Prague, Czech Republic ABSTRACT: The Carpathians are the longest mountain range in Europe and a geographic barrier between Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. To investigate the climate of the area, the CARPATCLIM project members collected, quality-checked, homogenized, harmonized, and interpolated daily data for 16 meteorological variables and many derived indicators related to the period 1961–2010. The principal outcome of the project is the Climate Atlas of the Carpathian Region, hosted on a dedicated website (www.carpatclim-eu.org) and made of high-resolution daily grids (0.1 ∘ × 0.1 ∘ ) of all variables and indicators at different time steps. In this article, we analyze the spatial and temporal variability of 10 variables: minimum, mean, and maximum temperature, daily temperature range, precipitation, cloud cover, relative sunshine duration, relative humidity, surface air pressure, and wind speed at 2 m. For each variable, we present the gridded climatologies for the period 1961–2010 and discuss the linear trends both on an annual and seasonal basis. Temperature was found to increase in every season, in particular in the last three decades, confirming the trends occurring in Europe; wind speed decreased in every season; cloud cover and relative humidity decreased in spring, summer, and winter, and increased in autumn, while relative sunshine duration behaved in the opposite way; precipitation and surface air pressure showed no significant trend, though they increased slightly on an annual basis. We also discuss the correlation between the variables and we highlight that in the Carpathian Region positive and negative sunshine duration anomalies are highly correlated to the corresponding temperature anomalies during the global dimming (1960s and 1970s) and brightening (1990s and 2000s) periods. KEY WORDS Carpathians; climate change; cloud cover; precipitation; relative humidity; surface air pressure; sunshine duration; temperature; wind speed Received 19 November 2013; Revised 28 April 2014; Accepted 29 April 2014 * Correspondence to: J. Spinoni, European Commission - Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability - Climate Risk Management Unit, TP 124, Via E. Fermi 2749, I-21027 Ispra, VA, Italy. E-mail: jonathan.spinoni@jrc.ec.europa.eu © 2014 Royal Meteorological Society