ENSEMBLES WP5.1: Gridded observational datasets

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WP5.1 project info

Leader
Albert Klein Tank (KNMI)

Participants
Lisette Klok & Albert Klein Tank (KNMI)
Evelyn Zenklusen & Michael Begert (MeteoSwiss)
Malcolm Haylock & Phil Jones (University of East Anglia)
Nynke Hofstra & Mark New (University of Oxford)

Objective
Production of daily gridded datasets for surface climate variables (max/min/mean temperature, precipitation, surface air pressure and snow cover) covering Europe for the greater part with a resolution (~50 km) high enough to capture extreme weather events and with attached information on data uncertainty.

Deliverable
Major milestone (MM5.3) of this work package is the production of the gridded datasets. They will be delivered by November 2007. At that time, the gridded datasets will become available to the other WPs and RTs for climate analyses, climate model validation, scenario construction and for driving and validating impact models.

Tasks
(1) Collation of daily series
(2) Quality control of daily series
(3) Development and evaluation of gridding methods
(4) Production of gridded datasets
(5) Estimation of data uncertainty
(6) Evaluation of gridded datasets against station observations
(7) Preparation of datasets for passing on to other users.

WP5.1 news

November 2007
ENSEMBLES WP5.1 gridded observational datasets for Europe are available here. This completes WP5.1 of ENSEMBLES.

September 2007
A new WP5.1 deliverable is now available:
D5.20 Updated and extended European dataset of daily climate observations (submitted to Int.J.Climatol.)

November 2006
At the ENSEMBLES Third General Assembly in Lund, Sweden, the latest results of WP5.1 were presented (ppt).

September 2006
At the 6th European Conference on Applied Climatology (ECAC) in Ljubljana, three WP5.1 presentations were given:
(1) Begert, M.; Zenklusen, E.; Häberli, C.; Appenzeller, C.; Klok, L.: Testing an automated homogenization procedure for large multivariate datasets
(2) Klok, E.J. ; Klein Tank, A.M.G: Changes in precipitation frequency and intensity over Europe
(3) Hofstra, N.; New, M.: Correlation Decay Distances (CDDs) of Daily Temperature and Precipitation Data over Europe

April 2006
Two WP5.1 deliverables are now available:
D5.8 Assessment of the available station density for the gridding and daily data quality/homogeneity
D5.9 Report on the analysis of possible gridding methods

March 2006
Poster presented at the ENSEMBLES workshop "Extreme climatic events and impacts" in Riederalp, Switzerland.

December 2005
At the 5th ECSN Data Management Workshop, a special session was dedicated to the development of gridded datasets. The presentations of this gridding session can be found here including three presentations about ENSEMBLES WP5.1.

WP5.1 links to other gridded observational datasets

Europe
MARS-STAT (daily, 50 km grid, several parameters, from 1975)
Alpine precipitation gridded analyses (monthly and yearly, 25 km grid, precip only, 1966-1995)
UK Metoffice gridded datasets (monthly and yearly, 5 km grid, 26 weather parameters, 1961-2000)

Global
HadGHCND (daily, 2.5*3.75 degree grid, temperature only, 1946-2000)
GPCC 50-year gridded precipitation fields (monthly, different grids, precip only, 1951-2004)
CRU05 (monthly, 0.5 degree grid, six parameters, 1901-1996)

Other regions
South Africa (daily, 0.1 degree grid, precip only, 1950-2000)
Baltic sea (daily, 1/6 degree grid, precip only, 1996-1998)
China (daily, 1 degree grid, several parameters, 1951-2000)
Oregon and Washington (daily, 50 km grid, precip only, 1949-1994)
Alberta (daily, temperature and precip, 1961-1997)
Australia (daily, 0.05 degree grid, several parameters, 1890-2005)
Mississippi basin (monthly, 0.5 degree grid, temperature only, 1988-1999)

Maintained by Albert Klein Tank

Updated 27 October 2008