Climate Inventory
Background
Cactus National Monument, are the basis for information critical to managing
natural resources. Photo courtesy of Charles Conner
Information on current and historical climate is critical to interpreting ecological changes and to managing National Parks. Most ecological processes and many species strongly respond to climate variability. In addition, current and historical data on climate are fundamental to interpreting past changes and to predicting future ecosystem changes. Weather profoundly influences everyday park operations such as fire management, search and rescue, monitoring of air resources, and maintenance of park infrastructure.
The primary objective of the first climate inventory was to compile baseline climate data useful to NPS biologists, hydrologists and resource managers. The inventory integrated data from more than 6,000 precipitation stations and 4,000 temperature stations across the conterminous United States to develop maps with relevant climate variables. The inventory produced both GIS-based and tabular products, and these are now available for most NPS units. Data in the climate atlas can be downloaded from the original Natural Resource FTP site by selecting 'All NPS Units' in the Pick Park(s) field, selecting Climate from the Area Category list, and clicking on 'Area Data'.
In addition to climate maps that provide a climatic context for parks, there is a need for a historical climate inventory and ongoing climate monitoring that provides data on frequent observations of climate - e.g., daily climate records that are useful for linking to environmental observations such as hydrology, plant cover, or animal populations. To meet this need, the I&M Program has initiated the NPClime project to address NPS needs to access and manage weather and climate data.
Products
NPClime is being implemented in phases:
Phase 1 consisted of an inventory of climate stations and the production of 32 network-specific reports. Reports included information on regional climate drivers, monitoring station locations, data provenance, measurements, periods of record, and other station metadata. This first step identified potential sources of climate data and was necessary to evaluate data availability and adequacy.
Phase 2 provides on-line, intranet access to climate data and analyses. NPClime is available via an operational beta release of the web interface and backend services. NPClime provides services for station discovery, data query and selection, and data delivery for one or many stations in a single download. Current activities are focused on enhancing features and robustness of the entire system, adding analysis and reporting tools, and refining derived products such as data summaries and (especially) graphics.
NPS is collaborating with the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) to improve data delivery services and expand access to data sources. We are investigating options for QA/QC and data archiving. Climate data analyses and graphics, which are produced by the R statistical language, can be customized by users to meet their individual needs and the base code can be used with data from other sources. The underlying system architecture is designed to be redeployable as a general data analysis solution. This effort will thereby contribute to program-wide needs for data analysis and reporting.
Future development of NPClime will focus on long term data management needs that address NPS-wide requirements for data quality, data archiving, and a long-term maintenance and updating of climate products. Final decisions on the detail and scope of NPClime involvement on these issues will follow the evaluation of NPClime Phase 2 products.
Status (June 2008)
NPClime development is a highly collaborative project between NPS and the WRCC. NPClime relies and builds on the capabilities of the Applied Climate Information System (ACIS). ACIS is a cooperative system supported by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) regional climate centers.
Current project activities are improving robustness and features of the user interface, enhancing R code that produces data summaries and graphics, and fully documenting NPClime services.
The core project team is large, including NPS staff, an Advisory Committee, university partners, and WRCC staff based in Reno, Nevada. Key NPS contacts are John Gross, Greg Hill and Lisa Nelson.
More Information
- Email John Gross, Inventory Coordinator - ph: (970) 267-2111
- NPClime Home Page
- MetED - An excellent set of on-line short (30-90 minute) education modules on climate and climate-related topics
- National Climatic Data Center
- Western Region Climate Center (WRCC) NPS page
- Applied Climate Information System (ACIS)
- RAWS
- University
of Utah Department of Meteorology Links
- Weatherbase.com - good source for monthly mean, min, max temperatures and similar