Climate and climate change data portals

Julian Ramirez / Andy Jarvis / Carlos Navarro

Contents

• Where does everything

start?

• Daily weather data

– Weather station

– Gridded

• Mean climatology

– Weather station

– Interpolated

• Future climate data

– GCM data

– Downscaled

Where does everything start?

• We need plants for

food

• Plants respond to the

environment

RV & C (2012)

Daily weather data

• Agricultural

researchers need

high quality

weather

information

RV & C (2012)

Sources of daily weather data

• Our own met service

• Global Historical Climatology Network

(GHCN) -14k weather stations

• CIAT’s weather station database (9k

stations) –but loads of restrictions

• Global Summary of the Day (GSOD) -10k

weather stations –uh oh?

• GPCP, GPCC, NASA-Power (1 degree)

(1995 – now)

• TRMM (1998 – now)

Early

20th century

Optimal (mid)

20th century

Despite some improvements in data availability

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Nu

mb

er

of

stat

ion

s (h

igh

qu

alit

y)

Nu

mb

er

of

stat

ion

s (a

ll)

All stations

Highly reliable

© Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN)

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcnm/v2.php

SSA (WS)

SSA (1DD)

SAS (WS)

SAS (1DD)

Satellite rainfall data (TRMM)

observed

TRMM

Chitala (MWI)

MEAN CLIMATOLOGY

Mean climatology

• New et al. (2002) –CRU (10 min

resolution)

• Hijmans et al. (2005) –WorldClim (0.5 min)

Interpolated

rainfall bias

Interpolated

temperature

bias

Climate model data

Research areas: Available and

usable climate data

BCCR-BCM2.0 CCCMA-CGCM3.1-

T47

CNRM-CM3

CSIRO-MK3.0 CSIRO-MK3.5 GFDL-CM2.0

GFDL-CM2.1 INGV-ECHAM4 INM-CM3.0

IPSL-CM4 MIROC3.2-MEDRES MIUB-ECHO-G

MPI-ECHAM5 MRI-CGCM2.3.2A NCAR-CCSM3.0

NCAR-PCM1 UKMO-HADCM3 UKMO-HADGEM1

Global climate models

• Climate model skill (CMIP3)1961-1990 Rainfall 1961-1990 Temperature

Source: Ramirez and Challinor, 2012

Global Climate Models

• Global climate model skill (IPCC 4AR)

Source: Ramirez and Challinor, 2012

Mean

tem

pera

ture

Diu

rnal te

mp

era

ture

ran

ge

Rain

fall

Annual December-February June-July-August

Also, we need downscaling

• Even the most precise GCM is too coarse (~100km)

• To increase resolution, uniformise, provide high resolution and contextualised data

• Different methods exist… from interpolation to neural networks and RCMs

www.ccafs-climate.org

Can high resolution datasets be

used for ag. Modelling?

Navarro et al., in prep

Notes to take

• Various sources of

weather/climate data exist,

pick the best for your case… if

there’s no data…

• Beware of errors in the data

• Improvements to data network

are needed

• Use downscaled information

carefully

• Assess the ability of these

data to make ag. predictions

(c) Neil Palmer (CIAT)