Presentation given at the second analogues workshop, held in Dakar (Senegal) in April 2012.

1. Climate and climate change data
portals
Julian Ramirez / Andy Jarvis / Carlos
Navarro

2. Contents
• Where does everything
start?
• Daily weather data
– Weather station
– Gridded
• Mean climatology
– Weather station
– Interpolated
• Future climate data
– GCM data
– Downscaled

3. Where does everything start?
• We need plants for
food
• Plants respond to the
environment

4. RV & C (2012)

5. Daily weather data
• Agricultural
researchers need
high quality
weather
information
RV & C (2012)

6. 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)

8. Despite some improvements in data availability
16000 2500
All stations
14000
Highly reliable
Number of stations (high quality)
2000
12000
Number of stations (all)
Early
10000
20th century 1500
8000
1000
6000
4000
500
2000 © Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcnm/v2.php
0 0
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Optimal (mid)
20th century

9. SSA (WS)
SSA (1DD)
SAS (WS)
SAS (1DD)

10. Satellite rainfall data (TRMM)
Chitala (MWI)
TRMM
observed

11. MEAN CLIMATOLOGY

12. Mean climatology
• New et al. (2002) –CRU (10 min
resolution)
• Hijmans et al. (2005) –WorldClim (0.5 min)

13. Interpolated
rainfall bias

14. Interpolated
temperature
bias

15. Climate model data

17. BCCR-BCM2.0 CCCMA-CGCM3.1- CNRM-CM3
T47
Research areas: Available and
CSIRO-MK3.0
usable climate data
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

18. Global climate models
• Climate model skill (CMIP3)
1961-1990 Rainfall 1961-1990 Temperature
Source: Ramirez and Challinor, 2012

19. Global Climate Models
• Global climate model skill (IPCC 4AR)
Annual December-February June-July-August
Diurnal temperature range
temperature
MeanRainfall
Source: Ramirez and Challinor, 2012

20. 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

21. www.ccafs-climate.org

24. Can high resolution datasets be
used for ag. Modelling?
Navarro et al., in prep

25. 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)