An analysis of monthly precipitation has been constructed on a 2.5olat/lon grid over the globe for a 56-year period from 1948 to the present. Called PREC (Precipitation REConstruction), the land portion of this global analysis is defined by optimal interpolation of gauge observations at over 17,000 stations collected in the NOAA/NCDC GHCN Version 2 and the NOAA/CPC CAMS data sets. The oceanic precipitation analysis (PREC/O), meanwhile, is produced by EOF reconstruction in which anomaly fields are computed by projecting the historical gauge observations over islands and land areas onto spatial loading functions of leading EOF modes for the satellite estimates of later years (1979-1998) with complete spatial coverage.

The PREC global monthly precipitation analysis is applied to verify the precipitation fields produced by the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis and the climate models of ECHAM and NSIPP for a period from 1950 to 2002. First, the mean annual cycle of precipitation is defined for each of the model-based precipitation fields and compared to that of our global analysis to examine the overall magnitude and seasonal variation patterns of the large-scale precipitation. Precipitation anomaly patterns associated with ENSO and other major circulation patterns such as NAO and PNA are then extracted from the model-based precipitation fields and compared with those in the PREC. In particular, the spatial distribution and evolution patterns of ENSO-induced oceanic precipitation are investigated with emphasis on the period before 1979 when no satellite estimates are available. Detailed results of the verification will be given at the conference.