The Mediterranean moisture supply in the genesis of climatological and extreme monthly continental precipitation

The moisture transport from its sources to the continents is one of the most relevant topics in the hydrology, and its role in extremes events is crucial to understand several processes in the Earth, as intense precipitations and/or flooding. Using the global precipitation (P) dataset from the Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) from 1980 to 2015 with a 3-hourly temporal and 0.25° spatial resolution, a monthly precipitation climatology were done over the area of the Mediterranean Sea, checking grid by grid which year exhibits the maximum precipitation. As is well known, the Mediterranean Basin is a clear source of moisture for the surrounding areas. To link this source of moisture with the precipitation, in this work we have made use of the Lagrangian dispersion model FLEXPART to track, in its forward mode, those particles that monthly leave the Mediterranean Basin and we have calculated the loss of moisture (E-P<0) modelled by FLEXPART (P-FLEX) over the continental region. The aim of this study is to calculate the monthly climatological percentage of the Mediterranean contribution grid by grid, and the changes of this contribution for extreme monthly precipitation checking the importance of this sea source of moisture during the maximum peak of precipitation.