Developing a Caribbean Climate Interactive Database

(CCID)

Rainaldo F. Crosbourne, Michael A. Taylor, A. M. D. Amarakoon**

CLIMATE STUDIES GROUP MONADepartment of Physics

University of the West IndiesJAMAICA

[** SPEAKER]

INTRODUCTION

• AIACC (Assessment of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change) project SIS06.– Investigates the link between climate and dengue– Involves organizations – CSGM (Climate Studies Group Mona, CAREC

(The Caribbean Epidemiology Center), CPACC (Caribbean Planning for Adaptation to Climate Change) etc.

– Demands a lot of climate and dengue data, that need to be stored.– Requires that the climate data be accessible through a web interface.– All the climate data be converted to one common comprehensive form– Caribbean data isn’t easily available– If it is available, it isn’t easily accessible.– AIACC-SIS06 researchers, in dengue and climate, need specific climate

variables and in specific format.

The above problems were acknowledged and the need for a Caribbean Climate Interactive Database arose.

CCID will attempt to solve all those problems

Methodology

• Gridded data

– Interpolation of data to a regular grid. Oftentimes this involves a synthesis of station data, satellite data, data from ocean sensors and ship data. It has the structure shown.

Acquiring the data

•Climate data is available in two forms•Station data: Time series of a particular variable recorded at a particular location in a territory. Station data are usually recorded by the national meteorological stations, water resource authorities and agriculture research stations.

•Station Data are identified by parameters such as: Country, Station name, ID, Latitude, Longitude, Elevation, Time Series, Variable

The planned data base will cover the domain 0⁰ - 30⁰N and 110⁰ - 50⁰W. This includes 21 Caribbean countries.

Costa Rica

Jamaica

Data Sources and TypesDataset Data Source Data Type VariablesGHCN Global Historical Climate

Network (GHCN) National Climate Data Center, (USA).

Station

Monthly

Mean Temperature, Maximum Temperature, Minimum Temperature and Precipitation.

UWI University of the West Indies (UWI) Climate Studies Group Mons (Chen and Taylor, 2002)

Gridded

(R40), monthly

Precipitation

Workshop Workshop on Climate Data Collection and Dissemination, Mona, Jamaica, 2001. (Peterson et al 2002)

Station

daily

Mean Temperature, Maximum Temperature, Minimum Temperature and Precipitation.

Magaña Magaña – Magana et al (1999) Taylor et al (2002) Gridded

(0.5o x0.5o)

Monthly

Precipitation

Reanalysis National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (Kalaney et al, 1996 )

Gridded

(2.5o x2.5o). Monthly

Geopotential height, relative humidity, specific humidity, temperature, pressure vertical velocity, u wind v wind

Methodology…….Design Of The Database

Issues influencing the design

CCID needs to fulfill the following criteria:• Store large quantities of historical climate data on a variety of temporal

and spatial scales.• Store both gridded and station data with time resolution ranging from

daily to yearly.• The need for easy and quick retrieval of subsets of the database as

specified by the user.• The need to compute context specific statistical analysis of the data.• Easy update of the database as new data become available.• Easy update of the structure of the database, so as to facilitate changes

in representation, that can be made to new data being stored.

Structural Modules of the Database and their Functions

MODULE NAME FUNCTION

Data Storage And Retrieval Handles the way climate data is stored. Creates suitable directory structure to facilitate fast and easy access of data

Statistics Handles all the statistical calculations that are needed.

Data Update Handles the data updates.

Visualizations Handles all the visualizations necessary for data analysis. Can take information from the statistics and the Data Storage and retrieval modules, and present suitable visualizations to the user interface

The User Interface Allows the user to interact with all the other modules without knowing how each module is implemented.

Schematic Diagram of the Database

SCREENSHOT OF USER INTERFACE MODULE

Significance/Contributions of the CCID

Once CCID is fully developed, it will provide a wealth of Climate Data that can easily be accessed and spanning a wider region.

Under one roof, it enables:• The study of the climate variability/change on a

regional/country/parish(county) basis, on different time scales.

• Information on the frequency of droughts or floods• The study of precipitation climatology• Statistical and time series analysis of climate variables

and also cross correlations together with visualizations• Quick output of results

Significance…………. Thus, CCID, shall be an invaluable data

depository for the SIS06 project as it is concerned with climate impacts on dengue epidemic.

In relation to the National Communications under the UNFCCC, CCID is again of immense practical value, as:

Climate/drought/flood impacts on the Health, Agriculture, and hence on the Economic Sector are some main components dealt in National Communications

Recent analysis of Caribbean Temperature by Peterson and Taylor et al (2002).

Show increasing trend

TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF SUCH CONTRIBUTIONS

Caribbean Warming Trend

Peterson and Taylor et al. 2002

Show decreasing “linear trend”. But dominated by variability on the annual to decadal scales.

Precipitation Decreasing Trend

Mean Precipitation Climatology of the Caribbean

Bimodal Nature of the Precipitation

Chen et al. 1997; 2002

A Time Series of Jamaica Rainfall

Ref: Jamaica’s First National Communication to UNFCCC

National Meteorological Service, Jamaica

CONSTRAINTS

• Lack of digitized daily data. Digitization was time and labour consuming

• Incomplete data records and poor quality of some records. Needed quality control

• Unwillingness to share data, RED TAPES!• Lack of spatial variability in station data. A

limitation to the dengue project. • Mismatch of climate and dengue data formats

(reporting periods). Impact may not be severe.