Keywords: Statistical downscaling Stepwise multiple linear regression

with their computational/technical characteristics, are at present less useful for long-term (decadal) predictions (Giorgi and Meleux, 2007). Therefore, statistical downscaling methods were developed to determine predictive relationships between air pollution ical variables (or ‘‘predictors’’) and e.g. air-quality variables (or ‘‘predictands’’). These relations based on (non) linear multiple regressions have been described in literature numerously, as for e.g. in Chaloulakou et al. (2003) and Ainslie and Steyn (2007). Never-theless, the use of another circulation patterns as a downscaling tool is widespread, although less common in air-quality research. In that respect, this technique is adopted by e.g. Comrie and Yarna