NACP

1
A High-Resolution Daily Surface Weather Database
for NACP Investigations
Peter E. Thornton1, Robert B. Cook2, W. Mac
Post2, Bruce E. Wilson2, and Craig Hartsough1 1
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR),
Earth and Sun System Laboratory, Boulder, CO
80307-3000 2 Environmental Sciences Division, Oak
Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge,
Tennessee 37831-6407
MAST-DC Modeling and Synthesis Thematic Data
Center
NACP
Example Daymet Climatological Summary Data
Preliminary Merged Dataset Results
Project Overview

• Background
• As one component of the recently funded NACP
  Modeling and Synthesis Thematic Data Center
  (MAST-DC), we are producing high-resolution daily
  surface weather fields on a 1 km grid over North
  America.
• This project builds on previous efforts that
  resulted in the construction of a 1 km gridded
  daily surface weather dataset for an 18-year
  period over the conterminous United States (The
  Daymet U.S. database, online at www.daymet.org).
  Examples of the 18-year climatological summary of
  these daily data are shown in the center panel,
  illustrating the spatial and topographic
  resolution that users can expect from the final
  North American dataset.
• Major milestones in this three-year effort
• Year 1
• Update U.S. database of surface observations to
  2005.
• Produce new U.S. daily gridded data through 2005
  (including Alaska)
• Preliminary development of tools for automated
  query, subsetting, and retrieval of daily data
  (via OpenDAP).
• Establish contact with Canadian and Mexican
  sources for surface weather observations.
• Year 2
• Merge all available observations from U.S.,
  Canadian, and Mexican data sources.
• Generate preliminary continental grids.
• Continue development of automated data interface
  tools.
• Year 3
• Update all surface observations.
• Produce final continental gridded datasets
• Finalize data interface tools
• Transfer final datasets and software to MAST-DC
  for operational updates.
• Support

U.S. Canada Under previous support to P.E.
Thornton from NASAs Advanced Information Systems
Technology Program (AIST, NASA Ames Research
Grant No. NAG 2-1646), we developed a user
interface that streamlines the process of
ingesting and merging surface weather
observations from multiple data sources (Figure
1).
Figure 1. Web-based user interface to Daymet
software.
Through a collaboration with researchers in
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, under a surface
weather interpolation intercomparison project
(managed by Harvey Hill), we obtained use of a
large daily surface weather observation dataset
(approximately 6000 stations, Figure 2) for a
long period of record (1961-2003). We were able
to accomplish a preliminary merger of our
existing U.S dataset with the Canadian
observations, and generate a new gridded product
spanning large parts of the conterminous U.S. and
Canada (Figure 3). These results serve as an
early example of the final datasets that will be
produced, and also as a demonstration of the
technological infrastructure required to handle
these large data volumes and multiple data
sources.
Figure 2. Merged dataset of U.S. and Canadian
surface observations
a)
b)
Figure 3. a) Maximum Temperature, b) Minimum
Temperature, c) Precipitation, d) Vapor pressure
d)
c)
Support for NCAR is provided by the National
Science Foundation. ORNL is managed by the
University of Tennessee-Battelle LLC under
contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S.
Department of Energy