WRCC-NPS Climate Inventory Project: Tracking Weather in National Parks

1. WRCC – NPS Climate Inventory Project Kelly T. Redmond Western Regional Climate Center Desert Research Institute Reno Nevada National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Workshop San Diego, California 2006 February 7-10

2. A busy web site … about 127,000 accesses per day in January 2006, and 1.55 Gb / day of data / products. Driven largely by user requests.

3. Some Prehistory • Long involvement with western resource management agencies • Climate Reference Network Project. Visited 35-40 western parks. • Several smaller projects • Crater Lake water budget and climate studies since 1986 (NPS) • Channel Islands (NPS / USGS) • Southwest Alaska Network (NPS) • Central Alaska Network (NPS) • Yosemite Hydroclimate (NSF and CEC) • Aligns with a large number of observational activities of WRCC • Aligns very closely with fundamental mission of WRCC • Much overlap with many ongoing projects • Many of the necessary tools are in place or well into development • Have good internal access to main national data historical / live data

4. WRCC-NPS Climate Inventory Project Goals • Complete the weather/climate inventory of each of the 32 I&M Networks (a total of about 285 park units) • Produce and assist in production of network-specific reports • Develop and populate a database documenting weather stations in and near I&M Parks • Evaluate adequacy of coverage and identify major information gaps • Begin evaluation of existing weather and climate monitoring protocols • Produce templates for monitoring protocols that can be adopted and individualized by other parks • Begin development of network and park specific web pages to access, display, manipulate and summarize data • Finish this by Autumn 2006 !

5. Current Status of Inventories 32 Networks At least half will need to be produced nearly from scratch (15-17 ?) Remaining half are in different stages of preparation Some are essentially “done” ? Some are “close” ? Some are “assembling” ? Some are “very early” ? Some existing reports address several phases at once Inventories Design Protocols Some involve contractors, most are in-house (reminder to meet 5:30) Effort will involve outright production in some cases, assistance and advice and suggestions in other cases

6. Facets of this project It’s complicated ! Lots of people and networks, with activities at different stages Will try to use web to assist with coordination, communication, status www.wrcc.dri.edu/nps Much material can be found on web. Build access methods to: Basic background climate, monitoring, upload/download Prototypes and initial efforts: CAKN and NCPN Mostly inventories. Some protocol & design, web pages, data access. Usual situation: metadata not tied to data. Nomenclature At WRCC we call this: NPS Climate Inventory Project Climate networks vs NPS I&M networks Metadata (data about data) vs data (atmospheric measurements) Station inventories vs data inventories (most of focus is on former)

7. Report Template (first will be CAKN, then NCPN) • Would like similar format for all reports • “Weather and Climate Inventory: NPS XXXX Network” • 0. Executive summary • Intro, purpose and goals. Why doing this? • General background. Which parks, basic climate, spatial and temporal factors. Maps, tables, figures as needed. • Methodology used to obtain material. • Climate networks (national, regional, local), metadata tables, station location maps, data locations if known. • Recommendations, suggestions, guidelines. General considerations that apply to all regions. Specific considerations that apply to this network. Gaps in coverage. Duplications. Partnership and leveraging opportunities. • References, web sites, contacts. • Appendix: Descriptions or pointers to more detailed descriptions of major national, regional, or organizational observing networks. • Appendix if needed: Additional maps. • Electronic appendices or accompanyment: map files, location tables

10. Current Status Have hired a post-doc to oversee the daily details of the project. Christopher Davey, CSU (Ecology and Atmospheric Science) Strong interest in station siting Personnel at WRCC Kelly Redmond – Overall project oversight and coordination Christopher Davey – Inventory preparation, detailed project mgmt Grant Kelly – Access to metadata, web development, forms for entering metadata Greg McCurdy – Computer admin, applications, data feeds, web, protocols, field Dave Simeral – GIS, field maintenance, cold and wind and rain work Web pages under development Planning on a method for remote metadata entry via web. Including photos. Several visits, WRCC with Fort Collins, regional meetings, national meeting First report will be CAKN, then NCPN. Tentative schedule prepared. Now allowing about 6 weeks per Network, overlapping. Drawing significantly on previous reports. Lots of overlap in many topics. Will likely post for review for a short time.

11. In draft form As of 06 Feb 2006

12. Tentative order reports (for planning … not carved in stone)

13. A busy web site … about 127,000 accesses per day in January 2005, and 1.55 Gb / day of data / products. Driven largely by user requests.

19. Available soon …

20. www.calclim.dri.edu Southern California

22. (Note: Needs username & access code)

23. Select subdirectory Upload New subdirectory Rename Delete (Backed up daily)

25. NPS I&M Climate and Weather Project web pages Reachable through a link from www.wrcc.dri.edu/nps

27. Courtesy of Mike Dettinger, USGS / Scripps. Dettinger MD. 2005. From climate change spaghetti to climate-change distributions for 21st Century California. San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science. Vol. 3, Issue 1, (March 2005), Article 4. http://repositories.cdlib.org/jmie/sfews/vol3/iss1/art4

28. 1 C

29. Courtesy of Mike Dettinger, USGS / Scripps. Dettinger MD. 2005. From climate change spaghetti to climate-change distributions for 21st Century California. San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science. Vol. 3, Issue 1, (March 2005), Article 4. http://repositories.cdlib.org/jmie/sfews/vol3/iss1/art4

30. Last six years Sep-Aug Temperature As departure (F) from 1961-1990 1971-2000 1950-1995 1895-2000

31. One of many motivations for better climate data.

44. What’s happening with NOAA obs programs? Cooperative program NERON – National Environmental Real-time Observational Network

45. WRCC Personnel Kelly Redmond 775-674-7011 kelly.Redmond@dri.edu Greg McCurdy 775-674-7165 greg.mccurdy@dri.edu Dave Simeral 775-674-7132 dave.simeral@dri.edu Grant Kelly 775-674-7164 grant.kelly@dri.edu Christopher Davey 775-674-xxxx davey@cira.colostate.edu Heather Kemp 775-674-7165 heather.kemp@dri.edu Fax machine 775-674-7016 NPS Fort Collins Personnel John Gross 970-267-2111 john_gross@nps.gov Margaret Beer 970-267-2168 margaret_beer@nps.gov Danelle Malget 970-267-xxxx danelle.malget@nps.gov Fax machine 970-225-3597 Fort Collins NPS NPS Elsewhere Pam Sousanes 907-683-9573 pam_sousanes@nps.gov Steve Garman 435-719-2356 steven_garman@nps.gov John Ray 303-969-2820 john_d_ray@nps.gov Mailing addresses: Inventory and Monitoring Program National Park Service 1201 Oakridge Drive, Suite 150 Ft Collins, CO 80525 Western Regional Climate Center Desert Research Institute 2215 Raggio Parkway Reno, Nevada 89512-1095 WRCC main telephone number: 775-674-7010 WRCC web address: www.wrcc.dri.edu And … You !

46. Thank You !

47. Discards

48. Photographic Documentation of Long-Term Climate Stations Kelly T. Redmond Regional Climatologist Western Regional Climate Center Desert Research Institute Reno Nevada 89512-1095 775-674-7011 voice 775-674-7016 fax kelly.redmond@dri.edu Version 20040815