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Climate Analysis and Monitoring

The Climate Analysis and Monitoring (CAM) theme at PCIC is focused on providing reference climate data to users and interpreting recent seasonal weather in light of climatology using climate data available for the province.

Activity between 2012-2013 will be aimed at establishing the Provincial Climate Data Set (PCDS) and generating high-resolution climate maps from those data. Analysis of seasonal weather and issuance of Seasonal Climate Reviews (SCRs) will accompany this work from the onset. Much of this work is governed by pre-existing agreements with the BC government and Oregon State University’s PRISM Climate Group. Further development of the program (2014-2016) includes expansion of the SCRs, generation of time-series maps of monthly and then daily weather variables, examination of specific scientific questions that arise from CAM activities, and the introduction of new ways to serve the public’s need to access the work of CAM.

This work is enabled by British Columbia’s Climate Related Monitoring Program (CRMP) through a joint data sharing agreement between the province of British Columbia, RioTinto Alcan, BC Hydro, and PCIC. The CRMP agreement which also has Environment Canada support, provides PCIC with station observations from more than 6,000 sites across the province of BC.

Research objectives

  • Development of the PCDS: Initialize, update and maintain the database of station data including implementation of near real-time data ingestion and further steps toward quality control and station homogenization.
  • PRISM Climatology Mapping:  Application of the PRISM technology to the generation of 30 arc second resolution climatological maps of maximum, minimum, and mean temperature and precipitation in British Columbia on a monthly and annual basis.
  • PRISM Time-series Mapping: Generation of a time series of 30 arc-second maps of temperature and precipitation in British Columbia on a monthly basis. Initially, these maps will be produced for the period 1971 to present. Future work will explore production of monthly maps into the early and mid 20th century with a long-term focus on producing maps at a daily temporal resolution.
  • Develop Seasonal Climate Reviews: Issue reports at three month intervals analyzing the previous season’s weather anomalies using data in the PCDS, PRISM maps, and publicly available atmospheric analyses.

Key Personnel: