•  Overview
  •  Web-based
  •  ClimateBC v3
  •  ClimateWNA
  •  References
  •  Predictions
  •  Monthly data
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    RESOURES SECTION

    ClimateBC: A program to generate climate normal data for genecology and climate change studies in western Canada

    Overview

    ClimateBC extracts and downscales PRISM (Daly et al. 2002) monthly data (2.5 x 2.5 arcmin) for the reference period (1961-1990), and calculates seasonal and annual climate variables for specific locations based on latitude, longitude and elevation (optional) for British Columbia, Yukon Territories, the Alaska Panhandle, and part of Alberta and US. This program also downscales and integrates historical (1901-2002) (Mitchell and Jones 2005) and future climate datasets (2020s, 2050s and 2080s) generated by various global circulation models. The output includes both directly calculated and derived climate variables. Methodologies are described in Wang et al. (2006) and Hamann and Wang (2005).

    An overview of the ClimateBC is given in Climate Network Vol.10 No.1, April 2005, published by the Canadian Institute for Climate Studies [download] and in TICtalk December 2006 [download]. A recent Vancouver Sun article features output ClimateBC (open pdf).

     

    Web-based Program

    The web-based program is designed for peroidic users or those with program installation restrictions on their computers. This version will only process one location at a time.

    web-based ClimateBC

     

    ClimateBC version 3.21 (version history)

    ClimateBC_v32.zip (33MB)   ClimateBC_v3 _instructions.pdf

    Note: In case the program does not run on your computer, please download and install this library file and try it again.

    References

    Wang, T., Hamann, A., Spittlehouse, D., and Aitken, S. N. 2006. Development of scale-free climate data for western Canada for use in resource management. International Journal of Climatology, 26(3):383-397.

    Hamann, A. and Wang, T. 2005. Models of climatic normals for genecology and climate change studies in British Columbia. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 128: 211-221.

    Daly. C., Gibson. W.P., Taylor, G.H., Johnson, G.L., Pasteris, P. 2002. A knowledge-based approach to the statistical mapping of climate. Climate Research, 22:99-113.

    Mitchell, T.D. and Jones, P.D. 2005. An improved method of constructing a database of monthly climate observations and associated high-resolution grids. International Journal of Climatology, 25, 693-712.

    High-resolution spatial climate datasets generated by
    ClimateBC for British Columbia

    The following example and links below of a spatial climate dataset generated using ClimateBC are for Mean Annual Temperature only.

    Printable PDF:
    this is a large, printable PDF (right-click, use save target as..)
    View images:
    MAT_1975.gif, MAT_2025.gif, MAT_2055.gif, MAT_2085.gif
    Download Data:
    MAT_1975.zip, MAT_2025.zip, MAT_2055.zip, MAT_2085.zip

    Monthly data download

    Interpolated monthly climate data for the reference period (1961-1990) are accessible at a Ministry of Forests and Range FTP site: ftp://ftp.for.gov.bc.ca/HRE/external/!publish/Climate/