Weather & Climate
Resource Brief - March 2009
Overview
The Meteorological Data Inventory, or Climate Inventory, compiles baseline climate information and synthesizes this information in such a way as to make it more useful for NPS biologists, hydrologists and resource managers.
The Climate Inventory consists of basic information on annual precipitation, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and maximum and minimum daily temperatures. Other information may be collected as the needs for the Monitoring Program are developed.
Importance/Issues
Climate is considered to be the most important broad-scale factor influencing ecosystems. Global climate models predict that climate change and variability will be most severe at high latitudes. Without climate data, it is impossible to appreciate the causes of a variety of ecosystem changes—from vegetative cover changes to shifts in aquatic and terrestrial plant and animal communities.
Existing weather stations in southwest Alaska are focused primarily on the safety and needs of the aviation community. Typically weather stations are collocated near towns and villages of the region, thus sited at lower elevations in broad valleys, or in coastal areas. SWAN parks exhibit extreme topographic and geographic gradients and consequently, climate variability (maritime to continental), most of which is not represented in the current network of weather stations. Deployment of weather stations and the accurate collection of weather observations in remote coastal and mountainous locations will help to fill data gaps that currently exist in SWAN.
Sampling Design and Objectives
To deploy a network of remote automated weather stations in SWAN with the ability to:
- Fill in gaps of the existing network of weather stations.
- Capture average climate and climate variability across the SWAN region.
- Contribute to larger scale climate monitoring and modeling efforts.
- Contribute current weather observations to enhance day-to-day park operations.
- Maintain stations for the long-term (decades)
Hourly weather observations will include:
- Air temperature,
- Relative humidity,
- Wind speed and direction,
- Snow depth,
- Solar radiation,
- Precipitation,
- Soil Temperature (some locations)
Current and Future Work Efforts
Forty-six potential weather station deployment sites were initially identified SWAN-wide. Each site was visited in the field (ground inspection or aerial inspection) in 2006/07. A panel of experts evaluated each site for its ability to monitor climate and climate change in the SWAN region and identified the 13 high priority sites throughout the SWAN parks. An environmental assessment will be written during the winter of 2007/08 in preparation for station deployments in the summer of 2008 and 2009.
