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Daily Gridded Meteorological Datasets
Gridded meteorological forcing datasets include observed daily station data interpolated to a resolution useful as target datasets for statistical downscaling and hydrologic modelling. Common variables include minimum and maximum temperature, and precipitation. The datasets hosted on this portal are all based on station data, but differ with respect to the selection of stations, their domains, resolution, record length and gridding methodology. The following describes them in reverse chronological order, with the most recently developed listed first.
ABOUT THESE DATASETS
PNWNAmet (1945-2012)
The PNWNAmet dataset was created circa 2014 at 1/16° (~6km) over a domain covering northwest North America (NWNA; 40°N to 72°N and -169°W to -101°W). PNWNAmet was created using the trivariate thin plate spline interpolation method with the algorithm implemented by Nychka et al. (2017). Minimum temperature, maximum temperature and precipitation were interpolated separately using latitude, longitude and a 1971-2000 climatology from ClimateWNA (v5.10) as predictors. ClimateWNA uses bilinear interpolation and an elevation adjustment to create a scale-free, smooth at the boundaries, mosaic of available climatologies (Wang et al., 2006). Climatologies included were the latest available for the provinces, territories and states within NWNA, such as the 800 m, 1971-2000, PRISM products for BC and the contiguous US (Anslow, 2015; Daly et al., 2008). Elevation used in ClimateWNA was derived from the GEMTED2010 digital elevation model (Danielson and Gesch, 2011). Precipitation occurrence and square-root transformed precipitation amounts were interpolated separately on each day, combined, and transformed back to original units. After interpolation, the raw daily minimum and maximum temperature and precipitation surfaces were rescaled so that their climatological monthly means matched those of ClimateWNA following Hunter and Meetemeyer (2005). Wind data is also included, which is derived by re-gridding 10-m wind speed from the 20th Century Reanalysis V2 (20CR2) (Compo et al., 2011), as these are required by the VIC-GL hydrologic model. The wind data have not been adjusted to take wind field deformation by small-scale topographic features into account.
Station records were obtained from the second generation of Environment and Climate Change Canada's Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data (AHCCD) (Mekis and Vincent, 2011; Vincent et al., 2012, 2002), the homogenized United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) in the contiguous US (Williams et al., 2006) and the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily (GHCN-Daily) in Alaska (Menne et al., 2012). To maintain temporal consistency, selected stations had to have at least 40 years of complete records (< 10% missing days within a year) over the 1945-2012 period. To supplement sparse observations around the western and northern coasts of Alaska, daily data from 20CR2 (Compo et al., 2011) were used as virtual stations as they were the only daily reanalysis data available that cover the full 1945-2012 period.
Please cite as Werner, A.T., Schnorbus, M.A., Shrestha, R.R., Cannon, A.J., Zwiers, F.W., Dayon G. and Anslow, F., 2019. A long-term, temporally consistent, gridded daily meteorological dataset for northwestern North America, Scientific Data, 6, 180299, doi:10.1038/sdata.2018.299.
NRCANmet (1950-2012)
The NRCANmet observational dataset was produced by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and is available at 300 arc second spatial resolution (1/12° grids, ~10 km) over Canada. The bulk of the daily minimum and maximum temperature, and precipitation amounts for the period 1950-2012 were produced circa 2011 by Hopkinson et al. (2011) and McKenney et al. (2011) on behalf of the Canadian Forest Service (CFS), NRCan. The dataset was updated in 2013 to correct for issues in the Churchill River area. Gridding was accomplished with the Australian National University Spline (ANUSPLIN) implementation of the trivariate thin plate splines interpolation method (Hutchinson et al., 2009) with latitude, longitude and elevation as predictors. Precipitation occurrence and square-root transformed precipitation amounts were interpolated separately on each day, combined, and transformed back to original units.
Quality-controlled, but unadjusted, station data from the National Climate Data Archive (NCDA) of Environment and Climate Change Canada data (Hutchinson et al., 2009) were interpolated onto the high-resolution grid using thin plate splines. Station density varies over time with changes in station availability, peaking in the 1970s with a general decrease towards the present day (Hutchinson et al., 2009). Thus, the number of stations active across Canada between 1950 and 2011 ranged from 2000 to 3000 for precipitation and 1500 to 3000 for air temperature (Hopkinson et al., 2011).
PBCmet (1950-2004)
The PCIC meteorology for BC (PBCmet) dataset was created circa 2007 at 1/16° (~6 km) over British Columbia and northern parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.
This dataset was generated following Maurer et al. (2002) and Hamlet and Lettenmaier (2005). Interpolation was carried out with the SYMAP algorithm (Shepard, 1984). The interpolated data was then adjusted to the ~4km, 1961-1990, PRISM climatology (Daly et al., 1994) and interpolated to higher resolution (15-arc seconds) using ClimateWNA (Hamann and Wang, 2005; Wang et al., 2006). ClimateWNA was, in this case, run using the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) (v3) digital elevation model (Jarvis et al., 2006). The dataset also includes daily wind speed surfaces generated by re-gridding estimates of 10-m wind speed from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalysis (Kalnay et al., 1996) to 1/16° (~6 km) as they are require by the VIC hydrologic model. As with the PNWNAmet dataset, the wind data were not adjusted to take wind field deformation by small scale topographic features into account.
Station data was obtained from a mix of station networks, including those of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s NCDA, the US Cooperative Observer Network, the British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range’s Fire and Weather Branch, the British Columbia Ministry of Environment’s Automated Snow Pillow network and BC Hydro’s climate and snow stations. To maximize station density, stations were included if they had at least 5 years of record, but were otherwise allowed to drop in and out during the 1950-2004 period. Maximum station density in VIC occurred in the 1990s (Stahl et al., 2006). when networks such as BC Hydro, Ministry of Forests and Ministry of Environment, came on line or expanded.. Data from the homogenized Historical Canadian Climate Database (Mekis and Hogg, 1999; Vincent and Gullett, 1999) and the US Historical Climate Network (Easterling et al., 2000; Hughes, 1993) (Hughes et al. 1992; Easterling et al. 1999) were used to adjusted the dataset and create temporal consistency.
See Schnorbus et al. (2011) or Schnorbus et al. (2014) for more information.
TERMS OF USE
The data is subject to PCIC's terms of use.
NO WARRANTY
This data product is provided by the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium with an open license on an “AS IS” basis without any warranty or representation, express or implied, as to its accuracy or completeness. Any reliance you place upon the information contained here is your sole responsibility and strictly at your own risk. In no event will the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium be liable for any loss or damage whatsoever, including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, arising from reliance upon the data or derived information.
References
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