Temperature, precipitation and extreme events during the last century in Italy

Around the mid 1990s, the authors set up a broad-based research program with the aim of better understanding the evolution of Italian climate in the last 100/150 years. The program was developed both within European (UE IMPROVE and ALPCLIM projects) and National projects (National Research Council (CNR) project "Reconstruction of the Past Climate in the Mediterranean area"). At present it is in progress within the "Progetto Finalizzato CLIMAGRI", a project of the Italian "Ministero per le Politiche Agricole e Forestali". Moreover, in the next two years, further activities will be performed within the research program "Local climate variability in relation to global climatic change phenomena" funded by the Italian "Ministero per l'Istruzione, l'Universita' e la Ricerca" and by Genoa, Milan, Trieste, Turin and Udine Universities. The studies so far carried out have improved the availability and the quality of Italian data and have produced interesting information on the evolution of temperature, precipitation and some other parameters in the last 100/150 years. The paper summarises the main results obtained within the research program.