OVERVIEW OF VEMAP2 GRIDDED CLIMATE TIME SERIES FOR THE U.S. NATIONAL ASSESSMENT

Model input datasets of historical climate and future climate scenarios produced by the Vegetation/Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis Project (VEMAP) (Kittel et al. 1997) are being made available for the U.S. National Assessment.

Features of this database are:   Component Climate Sets
 

  •  Historical Climate Series -- Based on NOAA HCN, Snotel, and other stn data
  •  Time-Dependent ('Transient') Climate Change Scenarios -- Derived from coupled atmospheric-ocean global climate model experiments with transient greenhouse gas and sulfate aerosol forcing, from the following modeling centers:
- Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (model = CGCM1)
- Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, UK (model = HADCM2)
- others pending (including NCAR CSM)

Domain

  •  Conterminous United States

    • - Alaska: projected release late 1998/early 1999
     
  •  Gridded at 0.5deg. lat/lon -- Spatially realistic (e.g., terrain-adjusted interpolation by PRISM, Daly et al.)
 

Variables

  •  Tmin, Tmax, Precipitation
  •  VP (& RH), SR (& Irradiance)

    • -  Estimated with MTCLIM3 (Thornton and Running)
    - All variables physically consistent in space and time
  • Wind Speed (seasonal long-term climatologies only)
 

Time Step

  •  Monthly -- Interannual and decadal variation

    • -  Historical: Based on observed data
    -  Scenarios: Derived from coupled climate models
     
  •  Daily -- From stochastic wx generator: modified WGEN (Richardson et al, Mearns, Katz)

    • -  Historical: Realistic daily covariance structure
    - Scenarios: Daily covariance statistics from historical period
    - No daily spatial autocorrelation

Record Period

  •  Historical: 1895-1993 -- Temporally complete
  •  Scenarios: 1994-~2100+ -- Scenario records begin at end of the historical series

Regions

More Information

For description of development of model input datasets of historical climate and future climate scenarios produced by the Vegetation/Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis Project (VEMAP), see Kittel et al. (1997) and the following links:

For additional background on VEMAP and conceptual basis for development of the VEMAP datasets, see VEMAP Members (1995), Kittel et al. (1995), and the following web page:
 

 

References

 Kittel, T.G.F., N.A. Rosenbloom, T.H. Painter, D.S. Schimel, and VEMAP Modeling Participants. 1995. The VEMAP integrated database for modeling United States ecosystem/vegetation sensitivity to climate change. Journal of Biogeography 22: 857-862.

Kittel, T.G.F., J.A. Royle, C. Daly, N.A. Rosenbloom, W.P. Gibson, H.H. Fisher, D.S. Schimel, L.M. Berliner, and VEMAP2 Participants. 1997. A gridded historical (1895-1993) bioclimate dataset for the conterminous United States. Pages 219-222, in: Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Applied Climatology, 20-24 October 1997, Reno, NV. American Meteorological Society, Boston.

VEMAP Members. 1995. Vegetation/Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis Project (VEMAP): Comparing biogeography and biogeochemistry models in a continental-scale study of terrestrial ecosystem responses to climate change and CO2 doubling.  Global Biogeochemical Cycles 9:407-437.

 

 Page authors: T. Kittel, D. Schimel, Nan Rosenbloom, Hank Fisher, Andy Royle and Cristina Kaufman

 

VEMAP Home

 Revised 09-29-2000 Contacts