[NARCCAP-discuss] Interpreting NARCCAP Data

[Seth McGinnis]

Hi Sinha,

(1) The variables in Table 1 are daily average values.
Everything else is at 3-hourly frequency.  We are working on
developing aggregations of the data (monthly and seasonal
averages and climatologies), but they're not ready for
publication yet.  However, you can find the NCL script that we
use for the bulk of the data manipulation here:
http://www.narccap.ucar.edu/contrib/tools/ncl/aggregate.ncl

(2) The NCEP-driven runs cover 1980-2004.  For the GCM-driven
runs, there are two runs for each GCM-RCM pairing.  The current
run covers 1971-2000 and the future run covers 2041-2070.  See
http://www.narccap.ucar.edu/about/time-periods.html for more
details.

(3) See above.

(4) The variables in Table 1 are daily averages.  Table 2 has
the 2-D surface variables of interest to impacts modelers: temp,
precip, pressure, incoming solar radiation, and u- and v-winds.
Table 3 has all the rest of the 2-D variables.  Table 4 has
static (i.e., not time-varying) variables like elevation.  Table
5 is 3-D data.

(5) All variables are available for the entirety of the
simulation period.  There may be missing data in spots due to
problems when data was saved or post-processed, but it's nothing
systematic.  We have tabulated the timesteps where data is known
to be missing here: http://www.narccap.ucar.edu/data/missing/

Currently we have data available for temperature, precipitation,
and snowfall.  You can calculate relative humidity from specific
humidity, temperature, and pressure (all of which are available),
and we're working on developing those datasets, but they're not
yet ready for publication.  Here's the script we'll use:
http://www.narccap.ucar.edu/contrib/tools/ncl/calc_humid.ncl
We don't have heating and cooling degree days, though we may do
them at some point.

(6) No.  We have nothing available in temperature bins.


Extensive documentation of the data structure, organization, and
availability can be found on the website: http://narccap.ucar.edu/ 
See particularly the "About Data" and "About NARCCAP" sections.

Cheers,

--Seth



On Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:47:19 -0500
 "Sinha, Paramita" <psinha at rti.org> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am exploring the idea of using the NARCCAP RCM data to  project
>migration patterns of US households under climate scenarios. I am
>interested in using output from different GCM/RCM so that I can study
>sensitivity.  I need to know how to interpret the variable names
>correctly, so that I use the appropriate datasets. Some preliminary
>questions I have are as follows:
>
>(1)    What is the temporal structure (e.g. Is the data available at the
>daily/monthly levels?)
>
>(2)    What time periods can we get projection data for (e.g. yearly
>till 2100??)
>
>(3)    What do the terms current and future exactly mean? (e.g. the
>HRM3-HadCM3 has two sets of tables)
>
>(4)    What is do these each of the tables represent?? (e.g. Table 2:
>Primary 3-hourly surface fields (2-D))
>
>(5)    Are data on temperature, precipitation, heating degree days,
>cooling degree days, snowfall, relative humidity  projections available
>for each month of the year? Which tables are relevant?
>
>(6)    Are data available in "temperature bins" ( e.g. number of days in
>each 5 degree  temperature bins)? Which tables are relevant?
>
>Is there any detailed documentation/ references that I can look that to
>get a better understanding of the data? I appreciate any help you can
>give me!
>
>Thank you,
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Paramita
>
> 
>
>Paramita Sinha, PhD
>
>Senior Economist
>Environmental, Technology, and Energy Economics
>Research Triangle Institute 
>701 13th Street, NW, Suite 750
>
>Washington, DC 20005-3967
>
>Phone:  (202)9747875
>
>Fax: (202)9747855
>Email: psinha at rti.org <mailto:psinha at rti.org>  
>
> 
>
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