Development of gridded surface meteorological data for ecological applications and modelling
TL;DR: In this article, a spatially and temporally complete, high-resolution (4-km) gridded dataset of surface meteorological variables required in ecological modelling for the contiguous United States from 1979 to 2010 is presented.
Abstract: Landscape-scale ecological modelling has been hindered by suitable high-resolution surface meteorological datasets. To overcome these limitations, desirable spatial attributes of gridded climate data are combined with desirable temporal attributes of regional-scale reanalysis and daily gauge-based precipitation to derive a spatially and temporally complete, high-resolution (4-km) gridded dataset of surface meteorological variables required in ecological modelling for the contiguous United States from 1979 to 2010. Validation of the resulting gridded surface meteorological data, using an extensive network of automated weather stations across the western United States, showed skill comparable to that derived from interpolation using station observations, suggesting it can serve as suitable surrogate for landscape-scale ecological modelling across vast unmonitored areas of the United States. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that human-caused climate change caused over half of the documented increases in fuel aridity since the 1970s and doubled the cumulative forest fire area since 1984, and suggests that anthropogenic climate change will continue to chronically enhance the potential for western US forest fire activity while fuels are not limiting.
Abstract: Increased forest fire activity across the western continental United States (US) in recent decades has likely been enabled by a number of factors, including the legacy of fire suppression and human settlement, natural climate variability, and human-caused climate change. We use modeled climate projections to estimate the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to observed increases in eight fuel aridity metrics and forest fire area across the western United States. Anthropogenic increases in temperature and vapor pressure deficit significantly enhanced fuel aridity across western US forests over the past several decades and, during 2000–2015, contributed to 75% more forested area experiencing high (>1 σ) fire-season fuel aridity and an average of nine additional days per year of high fire potential. Anthropogenic climate change accounted for ∼55% of observed increases in fuel aridity from 1979 to 2015 across western US forests, highlighting both anthropogenic climate change and natural climate variability as important contributors to increased wildfire potential in recent decades. We estimate that human-caused climate change contributed to an additional 4.2 million ha of forest fire area during 1984–2015, nearly doubling the forest fire area expected in its absence. Natural climate variability will continue to alternate between modulating and compounding anthropogenic increases in fuel aridity, but anthropogenic climate change has emerged as a driver of increased forest fire activity and should continue to do so while fuels are not limiting.
1,575 citations
Cites methods from "Development of gridded surface mete..."
...Fuel aridity metrics are calculated from daily surface meteorological data (50) on a 1/24° grid for 1979–2015 for the western United States (west of 103°W)....
[...]
TL;DR: TerraClimate datasets showed noted improvement in overall mean absolute error and increased spatial realism relative to coarser resolution gridded datasets, as well as annual runoff from streamflow gauges.
Abstract: We present TerraClimate, a dataset of high-spatial resolution (1/24°, ~4-km) monthly climate and climatic water balance for global terrestrial surfaces from 1958-2015. TerraClimate uses climatically aided interpolation, combining high-spatial resolution climatological normals from the WorldClim dataset, with coarser resolution time varying (i.e., monthly) data from other sources to produce a monthly dataset of precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature, wind speed, vapor pressure, and solar radiation. TerraClimate additionally produces monthly surface water balance datasets using a water balance model that incorporates reference evapotranspiration, precipitation, temperature, and interpolated plant extractable soil water capacity. These data provide important inputs for ecological and hydrological studies at global scales that require high spatial resolution and time varying climate and climatic water balance data. We validated spatiotemporal aspects of TerraClimate using annual temperature, precipitation, and calculated reference evapotranspiration from station data, as well as annual runoff from streamflow gauges. TerraClimate datasets showed noted improvement in overall mean absolute error and increased spatial realism relative to coarser resolution gridded datasets.
1,079 citations
TL;DR: New survey evidence is presented of significant gaps at the individual level between Republicans and Democrats in self-reported social distancing, beliefs about personal COVID risk, and beliefs about the future severity of the pandemic.
580 citations
TL;DR: Human-started wildfires accounted for 84% of all wildfires, tripled the length of the fire season, dominated an area seven times greater than that affected by lightning fires, and were responsible for nearly half of all area burned, according to analysis of two decades of government agency wildfire records.
Abstract: The economic and ecological costs of wildfire in the United States have risen substantially in recent decades. Although climate change has likely enabled a portion of the increase in wildfire activity, the direct role of people in increasing wildfire activity has been largely overlooked. We evaluate over 1.5 million government records of wildfires that had to be extinguished or managed by state or federal agencies from 1992 to 2012, and examined geographic and seasonal extents of human-ignited wildfires relative to lightning-ignited wildfires. Humans have vastly expanded the spatial and seasonal "fire niche" in the coterminous United States, accounting for 84% of all wildfires and 44% of total area burned. During the 21-y time period, the human-caused fire season was three times longer than the lightning-caused fire season and added an average of 40,000 wildfires per year across the United States. Human-started wildfires disproportionally occurred where fuel moisture was higher than lightning-started fires, thereby helping expand the geographic and seasonal niche of wildfire. Human-started wildfires were dominant (>80% of ignitions) in over 5.1 million km2, the vast majority of the United States, whereas lightning-started fires were dominant in only 0.7 million km2, primarily in sparsely populated areas of the mountainous western United States. Ignitions caused by human activities are a substantial driver of overall fire risk to ecosystems and economies. Actions to raise awareness and increase management in regions prone to human-started wildfires should be a focus of United States policy to reduce fire risk and associated hazards.
556 citations
Cites methods from "Development of gridded surface mete..."
...We obtained daily 1,000-h dead fuel moisture data from the surface meteorological data (51) on a 4-km grid from 1992 to 2012, and computed monthly averages across the 21-y study period....
[...]
TL;DR: The FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper No 56 on Crop Evapotranspiration has been in publication for more than 15 years as discussed by the authors, which included updated definition and procedures for computing reference ET, an update on estimating crop coefficients (Kc), the adoption of the dual Kc for separate estimation of crop transpiration and soil evaporation, and an upgrade of crop ET under water and salt stress and other non-standard conditions.
483 citations
References
More filters
Book•
01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: In this paper, an updated procedure for calculating reference and crop evapotranspiration from meteorological data and crop coefficients is presented, based on the FAO Penman-Monteith method.
Abstract: (First edition: 1998, this reprint: 2004). This publication presents an updated procedure for calculating reference and crop evapotranspiration from meteorological data and crop coefficients. The procedure, first presented in FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper No. 24, Crop water requirements, in 1977, allows estimation of the amount of water used by a crop, taking into account the effect of the climate and the crop characteristics. The publication incorporates advances in research and more accurate procedures for determining crop water use as recommended by a panel of high-level experts organised by FAO in May 1990. The first part of the guidelines includes procedures for determining reference crop evapotranspiration according to the FAO Penman-Monteith method. These are followed by updated procedures for estimating the evapotranspiration of different crops for different growth stages and ecological conditions.
21,958 citations
"Development of gridded surface mete..." refers background or methods in this paper
...1 m (20 ft) and 2-m observations from RAWS and AgriMet/AWN stations, respectively (Allen et al., 1998)....
[...]
...Reference ET o is calculated using the Penman-Monteith method (Allen et al., 1998) and requires maximum and minimum temperature, daily average dewpoint temperature (equivalently, vapour pressure or vapour pressure deficit), wind speed and downward shortwave radiation....
[...]
...Finally, a logarithmic adjustment factor is applied to the 10-m gridded wind field to facilitate a direct comparison to the 6.1 m (20 ft) and 2-m observations from RAWS and AgriMet/AWN stations, respectively (Allen et al., 1998)....
[...]
TL;DR: The North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) project as mentioned in this paper uses the NCEP Eta model and its Data Assimilation System (at 32-km-45-layer resolution with 3-hourly output) to capture regional hydrological cycle, the diurnal cycle and other important features of weather and climate variability.
Abstract: In 1997, during the late stages of production of NCEP–NCAR Global Reanalysis (GR), exploration of a regional reanalysis project was suggested by the GR project's Advisory Committee, “particularly if the RDAS [Regional Data Assimilation System] is significantly better than the global reanalysis at capturing the regional hydrological cycle, the diurnal cycle and other important features of weather and climate variability.” Following a 6-yr development and production effort, NCEP's North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) project was completed in 2004, and data are now available to the scientific community. Along with the use of the NCEP Eta model and its Data Assimilation System (at 32-km–45-layer resolution with 3-hourly output), the hallmarks of the NARR are the incorporation of hourly assimilation of precipitation, which leverages a comprehensive precipitation analysis effort, the use of a recent version of the Noah land surface model, and the use of numerous other datasets that are additional or improv...
3,080 citations
"Development of gridded surface mete..." refers methods in this paper
...Data from NLDAS-2 is primarily derived from the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR, Mesinger et al., 2006), interpolated from the 32-km horizontal resolution NARR grid to the 1/8th degree NLDAS-2 grid, adjusted for elevation differences (e.g. standard lapse rates), and temporally…...
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used the PRISM (Parameter-elevation relationships on independent slopes model) interpolation method to develop data sets that reflected, as closely as possible, the current state of knowledge of spatial climate patterns in the United States.
Abstract: Spatial climate data sets of 1971–2000 mean monthly precipitation and minimum and maximum temperature were developed for the conterminous United States These 30-arcsec (∼800-m) grids are the official spatial climate data sets of the US Department of Agriculture The PRISM (Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model) interpolation method was used to develop data sets that reflected, as closely as possible, the current state of knowledge of spatial climate patterns in the United States PRISM calculates a climate–elevation regression for each digital elevation model (DEM) grid cell, and stations entering the regression are assigned weights based primarily on the physiographic similarity of the station to the grid cell Factors considered are location, elevation, coastal proximity, topographic facet orientation, vertical atmospheric layer, topographic position, and orographic effectiveness of the terrain Surface stations used in the analysis numbered nearly 13 000 for precipitation and 10 000 for temperature Station data were spatially quality controlled, and short-period-of-record averages adjusted to better reflect the 1971–2000 period
PRISM interpolation uncertainties were estimated with cross-validation (C-V) mean absolute error (MAE) and the 70% prediction interval of the climate–elevation regression function The two measures were not well correlated at the point level, but were similar when averaged over large regions The PRISM data set was compared with the WorldClim and Daymet spatial climate data sets The comparison demonstrated that using a relatively dense station data set and the physiographically sensitive PRISM interpolation process resulted in substantially improved climate grids over those of WorldClim and Daymet The improvement varied, however, depending on the complexity of the region Mountainous and coastal areas of the western United States, characterized by sparse data coverage, large elevation gradients, rain shadows, inversions, cold air drainage, and coastal effects, showed the greatest improvement The PRISM data set benefited from a peer review procedure that incorporated local knowledge and data into the development process Copyright © 2008 Royal Meteorological Society
2,447 citations
"Development of gridded surface mete..." refers background or methods in this paper
...…dataset provides high spatial resolution (800 m) climate surfaces of temperature, precipitation and dewpoint temperature at monthly time scales by performing local regressions of station data to physiographic elements using an extensive knowledge base of spatial climate factors (Daly et al., 2008)....
[...]
...…from 1979 to 2010 by combining attributes of two datasets: temporally rich data from the North American Land Data Assimilation System Phase 2 (NLDAS-2, Mitchell et al., 2004), and spatially rich data from the Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM, Daly et al., 2008)....
[...]
...Additionally, irregularly spaced observations are problematic for interpolation methods in regions of complex terrain (e.g. Daly et al., 2008)....
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented a European land-only daily high-resolution gridded data set for precipitation and minimum, maximum, and mean surface temperature for the period 1950-2006.
Abstract: We present a European land-only daily high-resolution gridded data set for precipitation and minimum, maximum, and mean surface temperature for the period 1950-2006. This data set improves on previous products in its spatial resolution and extent, time period, number of contributing stations, and attention to finding the most appropriate method for spatial interpolation of daily climate observations. The gridded data are delivered on four spatial resolutions to match the grids used in previous products as well as many of the rotated pole Regional Climate Models (RCMs) currently in use. Each data set has been designed to provide the best estimate of grid box averages rather than point values to enable direct comparison with RCMs. We employ a three-step process of interpolation, by first interpolating the monthly precipitation totals and monthly mean temperature using three-dimensional thin-plate splines, then interpolating the daily anomalies using indicator and universal kriging for precipitation and kriging with an external drift for temperature, then combining the monthly and daily estimates. Interpolation uncertainty is quantified by the provision of daily standard errors for every grid square. The daily uncertainty averaged across the entire region is shown to be largely dependent on the season and number of contributing observations. We examine the effect that interpolation has on the magnitude of the extremes in the observations by calculating areal reduction factors for daily maximum temperature and precipitation events with return periods up to 10 years. Copyright 2008 by the American Geophysical Union.
2,359 citations
"Development of gridded surface mete..." refers result in this paper
...Precipitation extremes were somewhat underestimated across most sites (median bias of −5%), similar to results of other daily gridded precipitation datasets (e.g. Haylock et al., 2008; Appendix B)....
[...]
...These results are consistent with previous studies that have shown gridded meteorological data tends to reduce the magnitude of extremes when compared to station observations (Haylock et al., 2008)....
[...]
Book•
01 May 1990
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an update of the former ASCE report Consumptive Use of Water and Irrigation Water Requirements (Manual No. 70) which was published in 1974.
Abstract: This manual, Evapotranspiration and Irrigation Water Requirements (Manual No. 70) , prepared by the Committee on Irrigation Water Requirements of the Irrigation and Drainage Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers, updates the former ASCE report Consumptive Use of Water and Irrigation Water Requirements published in 1974. It incorporates many years of user experience with the previous report and recent advances in the physics of evaporation from plant and soil surfaces. The manual is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter provides the background information on evapotranspiration and irrigation water requirements throughout the world. The next chapter explores various aspects of the soil-plant-atmosphere system while the third discusses energy balance. This is followed by a discussion of evapotranspiration, potential evapotranspiration and crop evapotranspiration. Chapter 5 explores the relationship between evapotranspiration and irrigation water requirements. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the methods for determining evapotranspiration and the evaluation of these methods respectively. The final chapter states the various ways an engineer might use this data. Therefore, this manual not only provides engineers with the necessary information to modify and improve procedures for estimating evapotranspiration, but it also helps them to evaluate and use this data.
1,617 citations