High-Quality Spatial Climate Data Sets for the United States and Beyond

Abstract

T he demand for spatial data sets of climate elements in digital form has risen dramatically over the past several years. This demand has been fueled by the maturation of computer technology enabling a variety of agricultural, hydrological, ecological, and natural resource models and expert systems to be linked to geographic information systems (GIS) (e.g., Bishop et al., 1998a; 1998b; Vogel et al., 1999). In turn, the use of such model/GIS linkages has stemmed partially from the increasingly complex nature of today's environmental issues, requiring multiple layers of spatial information to be analyzed in a relational manner (Johnson et al., 1998; 1999). Over the past several years, innovative methods for mapping climatic elements have been developed at Oregon State University's Spatial Climate Analysis Service (SCAS). The ultimate goal of the SCAS is to describe the climatic environment of the world in a spatially detailed, physically realistic manner. A major focus has been the ongoing development and enhancement of PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model), a knowledge-based approach to mapping climate that seeks to combine the strengths of human-expert and statistical methods (

Lichen bioindication of biodiversity, air quality, and climate: baseline results from monitoring in Washington, Oregon, and California.

“…Average temperature or moisture per zone was calculated from the PRISM data (Daly et al 2001) to roughly represent current conditions. Because we are intersecting modeled climate data (from lichens) to modeled climate data (from PRISM), there is unavoidably some noise in their relationships to one another.…”

“…Plot scores from the NMS model, hereafter referred to as "climate scores," were compared to climate estimates from the high-resolution (2 km 2 ) Parameterelevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) (Daly et al 2001). The PRISM estimates are long-term averages (1969 to 1990) and include dew temperature, temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, number of wet days, and relative humidity.…”

Physiographically sensitive mapping of climatological temperature and precipitation across the conterminous United States

“…PRISM (Daly et al, 1994(Daly et al, , 2001(Daly et al, , 2003Daly, 2006) is a knowledge-based system developed primarily to interpolate climate elements in physiographically complex landscapes. The regression-based PRISM uses point data, a DEM, other spatial data sets, and an encoded spatial climate knowledge base to generate estimates of annual, monthly, daily, and event-based climatic elements.…”

“…These estimates are interpolated to a regular grid, making them GIS-compatible. Previous mapping efforts with PRISM have included peer-reviewed, official USDA precipitation and temperature maps for all 50 states and Caribbean and Pacific Islands; a new official climate atlas for the United States; a 112-year series of monthly temperature, precipitation, and dew point maps for the conterminous 48 states; detailed precipitation and temperature maps for Canada, China, and Mongolia, and the first comprehensive precipitation maps for the European Alps region (Daly et al, 2001;Hannaway et al, 2005;Milewska et al, 2005;Schwarb et al, 2001a,b;Simpson et al, 2005). Reports and papers describing PRISM are available from http://prism.oregonstate.edu.…”

Mapping the climate of Puerto Rico, Vieques and Culebra

“…These estimates are interpolated to a regular grid, making them compatible with geographical information systems. Recent mapping efforts include: peer-reviewed official USDA precipitation and temperature maps for all 50 states and Pacific Islands (Bishop et al, 1998;USDA-NRCS, 1998;Daly and Johnson, 1999;Vogel et al, 1999;Daly et al, 2001); a new official climate atlas for the USA (Plantico et al, 2000); a 103-year series of monthly temperature and precipitation maps for the conterminous 48 states (Daly et al, 2000b); precipitation and temperature maps for Canada, China and Mongolia (Daly et al, 2000a); and the first comprehensive precipitation maps for the European Alps region (Schwarb et al, 2001a,b). minimum in this area.…”