Climate Perspectives (CLIMPER):A New Tool for Assessing the State of the

Climate Across the Southeast U.S.

Charles E. Konrad Southeast Regional Climate Center & UNC Chapel HillRyan Boyles and John McGuire NC State Climate Office, NC State Univ.

William Schmitz Southeast Regional Climate Center

Climate Perspectives (CLIMPER) Talk Outline

1. Background

2. Description of CLIMPER’s features

3. Current Work on CLIMPER

CLIMPER: http://www.sercc.com/perspectives/

1. Background

• Much recent attention directed towards climate variability and how ongoing, recent, or forecasted weather & climate extremes compare with the past.

• Many economic sectors have become more vulnerable to weather and climate extremes (e.g. agricultural, energy, water, transportation etc.).

• Hence a strong need to monitor the current state of the climate and compare it with the past.

Background (continued)

Climate Perspectives (CLIMPER) assesses ongoing and recent state of the climate across most weather stations in the SE US.

CLIMPER provides a fluid perspective on the magnitude of temperature or precipitation anomalies across different time periods. It can also find the closest historical analogs to a given event.

• First prototype developed in late 1990’s using FORTRAN.• First web-based, automated routine in mid-2000’s• Re-design in late 2007 with NC State Climate Office

providing expertise and software development.• Various add ons, including maps as well as measures of

thresholds/streaks, over the last year.

Technical Details• CLIMPER is powered by ACIS (Applied Climate Information System),

which is maintained by the Regional Climate Centers (RCCs)

• PHP software utilizes MySQL databases containing ACIS data• Run in parallel across multiple machines • Database and Processor intensive (~30 min per run).

• To provide timely updates, CLIMPER runs 4 times/24 hours – • 10am & noon across all stations via ACIS data feed • 4pm at ASOS stations located near major cities • 2am at all ASOS stations

• The 4pm and 2am are updates based on preliminary METAR values obtained from a Unidata LDM. These values are recalculated when observations from these stations come in from ACIS.

2. Description:

A. Local Station Perspective

A. Local Station Perspective Features: • choice of dates

A. Local Station Perspective

Features:• Identify nearest station by a) select an address or b) choosing a predefined location

A. Local Station Perspective – expanded view

A. Local Station Perspective

• User has an option of viewing history and sorting values from lowest to highest or vice versa.

B. Regional Map Perspective: Values

Expanded view

B. Regional Map Perspective: Ranks

Expanded view

C. Streaks & Thresholds

Period thresholds – frequency of days in a given period in which temperature => or <= a given threshold.

Streak thresholds – longest streak (i.e. consecutive days) in a given period in which temperature >= or <= a given threshold.

Example: Period thresholds

C. Period Thresholds (expanded perspective)

Example: Sorted Period Threshold >= 32 F

3. Current Work

A. Forecast Perspectives

- Based on National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD)

3. Current WorkB. Climate Perspectives expanded to the entire U.S.Example: Maximum temperature on June 30, 2010

3. Current WorkB. Climate Perspectives expanded to the entire U.S. Example: Avg. maximum temperature for June 2010, expressed in percentiles

3. Current Work (continued)

• Challenges for current/future work• Computational Expenses associated with:• Expansion of Perspectives for the United States• Processing point data from forecast models per station• Custom or user defined thresholds and streaks per

station• Visualization approach pushing limits of Google Maps• Client-side mapping to allow for dynamic interactivity• Rendering entire U.S. station Perspectives may make

older computers, browsers unstable

Climate Perspectives: http://www.sercc.com/perspectives/