A comprehensive high-resolution dataset of climate indicators for Austria
The project team is happy to announce that a new paper has been published in Scientific Data. Our recent study titled “Climate indicators for Austria since 1961 at 1 km resolution” (Lehner and Schlögl 2026b) presents a comprehensive, quality-controlled dataset of climate indicators covering Austria from 1961 onwards at a spatial resolution of 1 km.
The dataset brings together 117 climate indicators covering a wide range of variables, including temperature, precipitation, radiation, snow, runoff and humidity. The indicators are calculated from high-quality, gridded climate data and are provided at annual and seasonal timescales, as well as for the climatological reference periods 1961–1990 and 1991–2020. This allows changes in climate conditions and their spatial patterns to be investigated consistently across Austria.
A key contribution of the study is the development of an open and reproducible workflow for calculating and processing the climate indicators. The underlying data, including spatial fields, time series, climatological averages and significance assessments, are freely available via Zenodo (Lehner and Schlögl 2026a). The complete workflow and code are also openly available under a permissive license on GitHub (https://github.com/seblehner/austrian-climate-indicators), supporting transparent and reproducible climate research.
The dataset provides an important foundation for climate impact and risk research in Austria. Its high spatial resolution and broad range of indicators make it particularly useful for investigating changes in natural hazards, hydrology, ecosystems and other climate-sensitive processes. By making consistent climate information readily accessible, the study facilitates regional-scale analyses and helps researchers and practitioners better understand how Austria’s climate is changing and what these changes may mean for future impacts.
Image Credit: Giammarco Boscaro via Unsplash