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“Phenology – the timing of seasonal activities of animals and plants – is perhaps the simplest process in which to track changes in the ecology of species in response to climate change” (IPCC 2007). PEP725, the Pan-European Phenological Database, is thought as a European research infrastructure to promote and facilitate phenological research. Its main objective is to build up and maintain a European-wide phenological database with an open, unrestricted data access for science, research and education. So far, 20 European meteorological services and 6 partners from different phenological network operators have joined PEP725. The PEP725 phenological data base (www.pep725.eu) now offers close to 13 million phenological observations, essentially starting with 1951, comprising more than 200 species and 69 growing stages based on the BBCH scale. The data base grows with about 100000 additional observations per year. Having accepted the PEP725 data policy and finished the registration, the data can be downloaded according to various criteria, e.g. by a specific plant or all data from one country.To date (January 2023) we could count at least 115 peer - reviewed publications based on the PEP725, 17 of them published in Nature and one in Science. It appears that new avenues are entered in plant phenological research. Since remote sensing technology has been making big leaps forward with improved instruments and increasing resolution, Land Surface Phenology (LSP) is exploring its capabilities, especially experimenting with new and improved methods to correlate LSP with Ground Phenology (GP). A small but very active community continues to produce high quality research on plant physiological mechanisms and their relation with the atmospheric environment. Prominent appears the increase in the number of atmospheric variables, which have been related with plant phenology, for instance atmospheric brightening, light pollution, humidity, wind, day-time versus night-time trends. Strong interdisciplinarity combined with an increasing range of topics characterise the recent developments in phenological research. Just to cite a few: phenology in a future climate, agrometeorological questions, the role of plant energy budget, climate warming and fruit phenology, winter warming versus spring phenology, drought effects on phenology, carbon cycle, temperature sensitivity of various phenological phases and many more.Download statistics and the rapidly growing number of PEP725 based publications demonstrate the great demand and potential of the PEP725 phenological data set, which urgently needs development including a facilitated access, gridded versions and near real time products to attract a greater range of users.Finally, we would invite all, who have already used PEP725, to give us feedback!!! (markus.ungersboeck@geosphere.at; helfried.scheifinger@geosphere.at)Reference: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2007. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

“Phenology – the timing of seasonal activities of animals and plants – is perhaps the simplest process in which to track changes in the ecology of species in response to climate change” (IPCC 2007).PEP725, the Pan-European Phenological Database, is a European research infrastructure to promote and facilitate phenological research. Its main objective is to build up and maintain a European-wide phenological database with an open, unrestricted data access for science, research and education. So far, 20 European meteorological services and 6 partners from different phenological network operators have joined PEP725.The PEP725 phenological data base (www.pep725.eu) now offers more than 12 million phenological observations, all of them classified according to the so called BBCH scale. The first datasets in PEP725 date back to 1868; however, there are only a few observations available until 1950. Having accepted the PEP725 data policy and finished the registration, the data download is quick and easy and can be done according to various criteria, e.g., by a specific plant or all data from one country. The integration of new data sets for future partners is also easy to perform due to the flexible structure of the PEP725 database as well as the classification of the observed plants via the so-called gss format (genus, species and subspecies).PEP725 is funded by EUMETNET, the network of European meteorological services, ZAMG, who is the acting host for PEP, and the Austrian ministry of education, science and research.The phenological data set has been growing by about 100000 observations per year. Also the number of user registrations has continually been increasing, amounting to 305 new users and more than 28000 downloads in 2020. The greatest number of users are found in China, followed by Germany and the US. To date we could count 78 reviewed publications based on the PEP725 data set with 18 in 2020 and a total of 9 published in Nature and one in Science.The data base statistics demonstrate the great demand and potential of the PEP725 phenological data set, which urgently needs development including a facilitated access, gridded versions and near real time products to attract a greater range of users.

The Pan European Phenology (PEP) project is a European infrastructure to promote and facilitate phenological research, education, and environmental monitoring. The main objective is to maintain and develop a Pan European Phenological database (PEP725) with an open, unrestricted data access for science and education. PEP725 is the successor of the database developed through the COST action 725 “Establishing a European phenological data platform for climatological applications” working as a single access point for European-wide plant phenological data. So far, 32 European meteorological services and project partners from across Europe have joined and supplied data collected by volunteers from 1868 to the present for the PEP725 database. Most of the partners actively provide data on a regular basis. The database presently holds almost 12 million records, about 46 growing stages and 265 plant species (including cultivars), and can be accessed via http://www.pep725.eu/ . Users of the PEP725 database have studied a diversity of topics ranging from climate change impact, plant physiological question, phenological modeling, and remote sensing of vegetation to ecosystem productivity.

This paper describes the HISTALP database, consisting of monthly homogenised records of temperature, pressure, precipitation, sunshine and cloudiness for the ‘Greater Alpine Region’ (GAR, 4–19°E, 43–49°N, 0–3500m asl). The longest temperature and air pressure series extend back to 1760, precipitation to 1800, cloudiness to the 1840s and sunshine to the 1880s. A systematic QC procedure has been applied to the series and a high number of inhomogeneities (more than 2500) and outliers (more than 5000) have been detected and removed. The 557 HISTALP series are kept in different data modes: original and homogenised, gap-filled and outlier corrected station mode series, grid-1 series (anomaly fields at 1° × 1°, lat × long) and Coarse Resolution Subregional (CRS) mean series according to an EOF-based regionalisation. The leading climate variability features within the GAR are discussed through selected examples and a concluding linear trend analysis for 100, 50 and 25-year subperiods for the four horizontal and two altitudinal CRSs. Among the key findings of the trend analysis is the parallel centennial decrease/increase of both temperature and air pressure in the 19th/20th century. The 20th century increase (+1.2 °C/+ 1.1 hPa for annual GAR-means) evolved stepwise with a first peak near 1950 and the second increase (1.3 °C/0.6hPa per 25 years) starting in the 1970s. Centennial and decadal scale temperature trends were identical for all subregions. Air pressure, sunshine and cloudiness show significant differences between low versus high elevations. A long-term increase of the high-elevation series relative to the low-elevation series is given for sunshine and air pressure. Of special interest is the exceptional high correlation near 0.9 between the series on mean temperature and air pressure difference (high-minus low-elevation). This, further developed via some atmospheric statics and thermodynamics, allows the creation of ‘barometric temperature series’ without use of the measures of temperature. They support the measured temperature trends in the region. Precipitation shows the most significant regional and seasonal differences with, e.g., remarkable opposite 20th century evolution for NW (9% increase) versus SE (9% decrease). Other long- and short-term features are discussed and indicate the promising potential of the new database for further analyses and applications. Copyright © 2006 Royal Meteorological Society.

The paper describes the development of a dataset of 192 monthly precipitation series covering the greater alpine region (GAR, 4–18 ° Eb y 43–49°N). A few of the time series extend back to 1800. A description is provided of the sometimes laborious processes that were involved in this work: from locating the original sources of the data to homogenizing the records and eliminating as many of the outliers as possible. Locating the records required exhaustive searches of archives currently held in yearbooks and other sources of the states, countries and smaller regional authorities that existed at various times during the last 200 years. Homogeneity of each record was assessed by comparison with neighbouring series, although this becomes difficult when the density of stations reduces in the earliest years. An additional 47 series were used, but the density of the sites in Austria and Switzerland was reduced to maintain an even coverage in space across the whole of the GAR. We are confident of the series back to 1840, but the quality of data before this date must be considered poorer. Of all of the issues involved in homogenizing these data, perhaps the most serious problem is associated with the differences in the height above ground of the precipitation gauges, in particular the general lowering of gauge heights in the late 19th century for all countries, with the exception of Italy. The standard gauge height in the early-to-mid 19th century was 15–30 m above the ground, with gauges being generally sited on rooftops. Adjustments to some series of the order of 30–50% are necessary for compatibility with the near-ground location of gauges during much of the 20th century. Adjustments are sometimes larger in the winter, when catching snowfall presents serious problems. Data from mountain-top observatories have not been included in this compilation (because of the problem of measuring snowfall), so the highest gauge sites are at elevations of 1600–1900 m in high alpine valley locations. Two subsequent papers will analyse the dataset. The first will compare the series with other large-scale precipitation datasets for this region, and the second will describe the major modes of temporal variability of precipitation totals in different seasons and determine coherent regions of spatial variability. Copyright  2005 Royal Meteorological Society.

In this study, we set out to investigate the linkage of frost frequency to monthly mean temperature and its sensitivity to temperature changes. According to other related studies, the linkage between frost frequency and monthly mean temperature is approximated month per month via hyperbolic tangent functions. These models are validated using three validation experiments including split sample tests and temporal cross-validation. As there are quality-checked station data in Austria, whose temporal resolution and length allow for such a validation procedure, the validation experiments are conducted there. After the performance of the empirical models is evaluated and found adequate, the hyperbolic tangent approach is applied to about 500 stations within the so called Greater Alpine region (GAR), which extends from about 4 °E to 18 °E and from 44 °N to 49 °N. Using these models, it is possible to derive the sensitivity of frost frequency for any location for which the annual temperature cycle is known. This strategy is explicitly demonstrated for the Po Plain, where vertical temperature profiles on a monthly base are on hand as well as in Austria, where spatially high resolved maps of monthly mean temperature are available. Moreover, at stations for which long-term homogenised series of monthly mean temperature are available, reconstructions of frost frequency via the empirical models are done, returning to historical periods where no measurements of minimum temperature exist. On the basis of these findings, the impact of a possible future warming can be assessed, which is essential with regard to glaciers, permafrost and avalanches. Reduction in frost might bring positive economic aspects for agriculture, but negative consequences for low level skiing areas. Copyright © 2005 Royal Meteorological Society.