Empirical-statistical downscaling (ESD) is a method for estimating how local climatic variables are affected by large-scale climatic conditions. ESD has been applied to local climate/weather studies for years, but there are few - if any - textbooks on the subject. It is also anticipated that ESD will become more important and commonplace in the future, as anthropogenic global warming proceeds. Thus, a textbook on ESD will be important for next-generation climate scientists.

This Atlas presents records of climatic variability and change in Europe starting before 1901 and focuses especially on trends of extreme temperatures and precipitation. The authors have used software developed within EMULATE (European and North Atlantic daily to MULtidecadal climATE variability) to obtain the extremes indices and temporal trends. The trend atlas provides an easy way to identify spatial patterns for a given time period, region, season, and index. The Atlas clearly shows that climate in Europe has changed over the last 100 to 150 years, such that the occurrence and intensity of warm temperature extremes have increased. Precipitation extremes have also changed, but with a less clear pattern compared to the temperature extremes.