New 220-year daily record reconstructs European winds back to 1806

European wind records that are spatially consistent enough for continent-wide analysis reach back only about four decades, a window too short to capture rare and prolonged episodes of very low wind. A new preprint posted for discussion in the journal Earth System Science Data, currently under peer review, presents the European Geostrophic Wind Reconstruction (EGWR): a daily record of large-scale geostrophic wind for fourteen European regions spanning 1806 to 2026. Geostrophic wind is the large-scale wind implied by pressure differences, and the reconstruction derives it from surface-pressure fields in the Twentieth Century Reanalysis version 3 (20CRv3) for 1806–2015, switching to the modern ERA5 reanalysis thereafter.

Early pressure observations are sparse, and that sparseness smooths the ensemble-mean pressure field in the reanalysis, systematically weakening the derived pressure gradient and thus the inferred wind speeds. To diagnose the problem, the author applies a temperature-stratified decomposition, which identifies the smoothing of the pressure field—not residual errors in historical barometer calibration—as the dominant bias. The correction is a time-varying, region-specific, rank-preserving quantile mapping, referenced to the well-observed part of the reconstruction and to ERA5. Because the mapping preserves ranks, it restores the wind-amplitude distribution without altering the temporal ordering of the daily record.

The corrected series is validated against independent data: ERA5 itself, observed German wind-power generation, and two long-term anemometer records. Agreement is reported at daily and multi-day event scales, the scales that matter for studying wind droughts. The released dataset includes the corrected regional series together with uncertainty estimates, source and quality flags, and an optional low-frequency diagnostic. Region-specific recommended start years indicate the earliest periods suitable for quantitative persistence statistics, so users know how far back each regional series can be trusted for that purpose.

One technical caveat is built into the method: the calibration acts as an effective 15-year high-pass filter, removing drift driven by changes in the observing network. EGWR therefore resolves daily-to-interannual variability and the persistence of wind events, but absolute multidecadal trends require the separately provided low-frequency diagnostic. With that structure in place, the dataset offers an observation-based, two-century baseline for research on European wind variability, persistence, and low-wind events, and it is openly available alongside analysis code archived on Zenodo.

Subject of Research: A 220-year daily reconstruction of European geostrophic wind derived from historical surface-pressure data

Article Title: The European Geostrophic Wind Reconstruction (EGWR): a 220-year daily record of European geostrophic wind from surface pressure (1806–2026)

Article References: Paul, S. (2026). The European Geostrophic Wind Reconstruction (EGWR): a 220-year daily record of European geostrophic wind from surface pressure (1806–2026). https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-755

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.5194/essd-2026-755

Keywords: geostrophic wind, Europe, wind droughts, surface pressure, 20CRv3, ERA5, reanalysis, quantile mapping, wind variability, climate data, ESSD preprint, wind power