NPG Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics NPG Nonlin. Processes Geophys. 1607-7946 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/npg-16-299-2009 Investigating the multifractality of point precipitation in the Madeira archipelago de Lima M. I. P. 1 2 de Lima J. L. M. P. 2 3 Department of Forestry, ESAC/Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, 3040-316 Coimbra, Portugal Institute of Marine Research – Coimbra Interdisciplinary Centre, Coimbra, Portugal Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology – Campus 2, University of Coimbra, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal 15 04 2009 16 2 299 311 Copyright: © 2009 M. I. P. de Lima 2009 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/16/299/2009/npg-16-299-2009.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/16/299/2009/npg-16-299-2009.pdf

The purpose of this work is to contribute to a better understanding of the variability of precipitation in the Madeira archipelago. This archipelago is located in the Atlantic subtropical belt under the direct influence of the Azores high pressure system. It is formed by Madeira Island (728 km<sup>2</sup>) and Porto Santo Island (42 km<sup>2</sup>) and by two other groups of very small inhabited islands. The complex topography of the islands in the Madeira archipelago and their small size play a crucial role in the local precipitation regime, which is marked by high spatial variability. <br></br> This paper explores the invariance of properties manifested across scales and determines the fractal and multifractal behaviour observed in the temporal structure of precipitation using daily and 10-min time series from several locations scattered over the main islands. The period covered by the precipitation records is 34 years for the daily data and almost 4 months for the 10-min data. The results show that the temporal structure of precipitation in the Madeira Archipelago exhibits scale-invariant and multifractal properties. The empirical exponent functions describing the scaling statistical properties of the precipitation intensity were characterized using multifractal parameters; these parameters are increasing our awareness of the dynamics of this process in these islands.

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