Caribou and Climate Derivatives

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Caribou and Climate Derivatives

• Paul H. Whitfield
• Environment Canada

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Map of GDCN stations with more than 25 years of
valid daily data north of 50ºN (plus southeastern
Canada and Russian Far East).
Groisman et al 2005.
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Model simulations of the effect of CO2 doubling
on the average number of exeedences of the 99.7
percentile of precipitation distribution from the
Canadian Climate Centre (CCM1, left) and Hadley
Climate Model (HAD3, right) models.
Groisman et al 2005.
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Changes of the winter frequency of days with thaw
over Fennoscandia. Thaw-day is defined as a day
with mean daily temperature above 2ºC and the
presence of snow on the ground.
Groisman et al 2005.
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Statistically significant changes in temperature
temperature-derived characteristics over
northwestern quadrant of North America north of
49ºN west of 95ºW during the past 50 years.

• The two digit increases in warm season
  characteristics (marked in red) during the past
  50 years implies that there should be an
  additional water demand for evaporation and
  transpiration.
• It can be compensated by increasing
  precipitation.

Groisman et al 2005.
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Intent

• Combine data about movement of individual
  organisms with data for individual place
• Generate a climate record for animals exposure
• Assess temporally based derivatives for
  individual herds

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Polar Plots

• Change from place to herd perspective

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Create New Observation Series

• Take record for satellite tracked ?s
• Date time locations
• Time steps daily / two weeks
• Build a climate trace connecting location series
  with gridded data set NCEP
• Create a new series of daily climate observations
  for individual ?s

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Donner 1997-2004
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Donner 1997-2004
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Donner
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Donner
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Porcupine
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Analysis

• Average for n ?s
• Split over some time period 6 years?
• Separate or combined derivatives
• Climate i.e. Rain on Snow Days
• Snow i.e. formation of ice layer in snow

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Issues

• How to average series of derivatives?
• Extremes
• Wanderers
• How to average across derivatives
• Types
• Uneven time periods
• Time Steps

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Derivatives Assessed

• For each ? determine the relevant derivatives for
  specific periods of the year

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1Climate Derivates are typically counts of
numbers of events and have no memory. 2Snow
Derivatives are measures of persistence that
contain memory
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Precipitation Clusters and Rangifer Herds
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Temperature Clusters and Rangifer Herds
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Porcupine
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Ice crust formation
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Presumed critical conditions   1) 3 days mean
temp gt 1ºC, followed by 2 days mean temp lt
-1ºC.   2) Max temp min temp gt 10ºC, min temp
lt -2ºC and max temp gt 2ºC.   3) Precipitation gt 3
mm, max temp gt 2ºC and min temp lt -2ºC   4)
Precipitation gt 3mm mean temp gt 1ºC followed
by a day mean temp lt -1ºC  

• Measurements once a day
• Average over 10 years
• Oct - May 1993 2002
• Ordinary Co-kriging (ICP elevation)