Tapiador, Francisco J.2021-07-092021-07-092021Tapiador, F.J., 2021: Climate variability and trends, in The Joint IPWG/GEWEX Precipitation Assessment (ed. R. Roca), WCRP Report 2/2021, World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), Geneva, Switzerland.https://hdl.handle.net/1920/11982https://doi.org/10.13021/gewex.precip.2.2This chapter describes the role of satellite precipitation datasets in the analysis of climate variability and trends. Two major applications are explored, namely the validation of the variability in the statistical moments of the climatology (mean, variance, kurtosis, etc.), and the analysis of the model-derived modes of variability (PDO, AMO, IOD, MJO and ENSO). It is shown that precipitation may be seen as the privileged field to reveal, diagnose and quantify the nonlinear relationship between the variability in the climate system and changes in mean state. The fingerprints of climate variability and trends in precipitation are highly revealing of model performances, and thus arises the need for continually improving precipitation datasets based on satellite retrievals.en-USAttribution 3.0 IGOClimate variabilityTrendsModel validationPDOAMOIODMJOENSOBook chapter10.13021/gewex.precip.2.2