# Presentation: 675230

## NCDC and AASC in National Climate Service

**Marjorie McGuirk**
**National Partnership Liaison**
**NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center**

**NCDC and AASC in ****National Climate Service**
***An Update***

**Notes:**
I will be giving some updates to
The evolution of climate science  & service
The role of AASC for integrated climate services
That was presented last year 
Dr. Thomas R. Karl
Director, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center
July 17, 2007Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

## Integrated Climate ServicesBackground

- Government, state, private sector, academia climate service partnerships currently exists
- loosely coupled but many gaps exist
- A strategy is needed for a more comprehensive and integrated approach among the many climate service partners:
- NOAA offices (NWS/CSD/CPC)
- RCCs  and State Climate Offices
- Other Federal Agencies
- Academia
- Private Sector
- International
**Update 2008** – National Climate Services Strategic Planning
- Analysis options November – February 2008
- Strategic Plan Vail June 2008
- Roundtable Discussion July and August 2008
- NCDC Re-organization – tentative-draft-non-official

***Climate Services is “The timely production and delivery of useful climate data, information and knowledge to decision makers” (NRC 2001)***

## Climate Services PartnershipsFederal, State, Academia, Private Sector

- Current gaps in climate services
- Attributions
- Impacts
- Spatial and Temporal Resolution of observations
- Accuracy of Observing Systems
- Complexity of multi-disciplinary issues
- E.g., land use change & climate; confluence of heat waves, drought, poor dispersion/air quality
- Current Examples of Synergy
- RISAs:  Research to Operation issues
- RCCs:  Year-to-year uncertainty in budget resources
- Alliance for Earth Observations:  GEO efforts
- ESIP:  Assistance with data management
- NIDIS:  An issue specific model to follow for partnerships
**Update 2008**
- IPCC and CCSP reports
- Drought.gov webportal operational
- Contract Mod RCC
- Basic – Advanced – Supplemental
- HCN-M underway
- CRN almost complete

## Climate Data Services-Observations

**Climate Data Services-****Observations**

- Climate Reference Network
- Completing last of 114 stations by the end of September 2008
- Critical in-situ monitoring capability
- Work beginning on the deployment of soil moisture/soil temperature sensors at all 114 sites stating in 2008
- Workshop held with stakeholders in Alaska in May 2008 to begin planning for the deployment of 29 stations in Alaska
- The first deployment in Alaska is planned for 2008 at Sand Point.

**Notes:**
NOAA is close to installing the last of the 114 stations in its new, high-tech climate monitoring network that is tracking America’s temperature and precipitation trends. The U.S. Climate Reference Network (CRN), which first began appearing around the United States in late 2002, is on schedule to activate the final 5 stations by early fall 

Each CRN monitoring station logs real-time measurements of surface temperature, precipitation, wind speed and solar radiation. NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites relay the data from these ground-based stations to NCDC, which runs quality control checks and posts the observations online hourly

The CRN aims to pinpoint the shifts in America’s changing, often unpredictable, climate – and help scientists make sense of it all. “Anytime climate observations are uncertain, or inconsistent in their quality, it’s tough to gauge what’s really happening. CRN is eliminating the doubts,”  Tom Karl

There was a Workshop held in Alaska May 2008 on planning deployment of 29 stations in Alaska Reduced FY 08 funding for the Alaska CRN network allows for coordinating and conducting site surveys and one station at Sand Point on the Aleutians is to be installed this year. 

## NOAA & State Climate OfficesFormalizing the Partnership

- Issue
- NOAA is in the process of defining a ‘National Climate Services Program’ to include the RCCs & SCs
- Thus, NOAA needs to associate with the appropriate designated State agent for climate services
- Method
- NOAA to work with partners in defining the roles of the State Climatologists:
- _Competency_ – rely on AASC certification
- _Official Designation_ - State appointment authority
- e.g., letter from Governor’s Office or Legislative Body
- Benefits
- Formalizes the climate service partnership among AASC, State Government, & NOAA
**Update 2008**
- Paper-work on all SCO and ARSCOs available at AASC registration in 2008
- ARSCO encoded into contracts for HCN-M

***Existing Agreements***

## Climate Services PartnershipsThe Broad Community

**Illinois State**** Water Survey**

**Louisiana State University**

**WWA**

**Desert Research Institute**

**NOAA Climate **
**Diagnostic Center**

**CIG**

**University of ****Nebraska**

**CAP**

**IDEA**

**CLIMAS**

**SECC**

**NOAA National Climatic Data Center**

**NOAA Climate Prediction Center,***

**Cornell University**

**International Research Institute**

**UNC-Chapel Hill**

**CISA**

**Also:****122 WFOs****15 WSOs****13 RFCs****~50 State ****  Climatologists**

**ACCAP**

**Climate Services Partnerships***The Broad Community*

**Notes:**
The relative role of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center with RCCs and State Climatologist has been evolving.... 
NCDC manages a full spectrum of climate data (satellite, radar, models).  State climatologists have extensive expertise in  in-situ, coop and ASOS and mesonets, for example, and there is much expertise in these other data, however that expertise is not evenly shared with all AASC members.  This is where our partnerships of RCCs and State Climatologists is so important.  

Work at the regional and state level NCDC input for the national analysis.  

Providing climate analysis products
State of the Climate Report
Monthly Climate Assessments
Providing timely climate information to public and decision makers
Global and National analysis
Rely on information from states and regions to support
Sector-Specific Climate Services
Data Users Conference focused on Energy, Transportation and Insurance 
Providing NCDC data in format required by sector users

## We could talk about Climate Services in terms of WHERE the NOAA offices are located....Location of NOAA offices in the continental USA, by line office.

- We could talk about Climate Services in terms of WHERE the NOAA offices are located....Location of NOAA offices in the continental USA, by line office.
- Symbols are size-scaled by number of employees.

**Notes:**
We can talk about national climate services in terms of
WHERE the NOAA offices are located

## NOAA “Partnerships” in Climate

- Three Line Organizations Budget climate

- ...or in terms of Budget

**Notes:**
Or talk about climate services in terms of where the money on climate is spent

## Climate Services begins with the Customer

**Notes:**
What really matters in national climate services are the customers we serve....and we are all in public service....and we collectively serve all sectors of the economy.

## What do our customers want?

- NCDC Customer Profile

**Notes:**
Most of the customers for satellite data are from .gov
Most of the customers for this RCC were from .net
Most of the customers for in-situ data were commercial

## 5 million customers got data from NCDC in 2007

**Notes:**
Our services are in ever increasing demand

**Notes:**
This shows 12 million hits at one RCC in a year.

- About half a million customers got large data orders from NCDC in 2006

## NOAA Regional Climate CentersService Research, Education and Outreach 

- Conduct outreach to regional and local decision makers on the use of climate products.
- Building design (snow loads, soil freezing),
- Flood management,
- Irrigation,
- Pest management
- Coastal erosion
- Water management
- Agriculture
- Climate change
- Energy
- Environment
- Risk management
- Transportation
- Natural hazards

**Notes:**
This shows about 500,000 customers downloaded data each month from the 6 RCCs last year, roughly the same order-or-magnitude as downloads from NCDC.

Goal: Conduct outreach to regional local decision makers and users of climate services products.

Since the development of Regional and State climate information products is driven by stakeholders, this goal is central to the RCC and SCO’s mission.    RCCs have worked with decision makers representing fields as diverse as:  building design (snow loads, soil freezing), flood management, irrigation and pest management.  

## GCAD

**Director’s Office**

**Archive**
**Branch**

**Products**
**Branch**

**Operations Branch**

**Global Climate **
**Applications Division**

**Product **
**Development**
**Branch**

**Ingest and Analysis **
**Branch**

**Paleo-climatology**
**Branch**

**Remote Sensing and**
**Applications Division**

**GCAD**

**RSAD**

**Information**
**Technology Branch **

**Finance and**
**Acquisitions Branch**

**Data Access **
**and Applications Branch**

**Climate Monitoring**
**Branch**

**User Engagement**
**and Services Branch**

**Support Services **
**Division**

**Climate Services **
**and Monitoring Division****	**

**Logistics**
**Support**
**Branch**

**CSMD**

**SSD**

**NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center**

**DO**

**Climate Database Modernization Program**

**Regional Climate**
**Centers**

**Notes:**
In order to better serve the customer, NCDC has undertaken a reorganization

RCCs in customer service
Ingest and Analysis
CDMP
Climate Data Monitoring are the boxes with most interaction with RCCs and AASC members 

## Partnership Liaison Activities Update 2008

- RCCs
- AASC Action Teams
- National Data Stewardship Team
- Cross training customer service representatives on NVDI/CPO NCDC ACIS/NowData/CPC products
- Social-Economic Web Page
- FAQ Climate Change
- Fact sheets in draft form – transportation, insurance, energy, health, agriculture
- (Auto-overload-distribution to RCCs)
- (FTEs at RCCs)
- Liaising at national and state levels
- NWS Sub-regional Climate Services Sacramento CA 01/08, Fargo ND 06/08, Madison WI 05/08, Peachtree City GA 06/07
- AASC & CSPM & NDST monthly telecons
- NWSTC Climate Services Courses:  09/07 & 12/07 & 02/08
- (Climate Portal  - not noaa.gov/climate)

## Regional Climate CentersUpdate 2008

- Positioning RCCs in National Climate Services
- RCC Contract Modifications
- Basic Regional Climate Services
- Advanced Regional Climate Services
- Data – collection – mapping - mesonets
- Science analysis
- Outreach – education – Fact Sheets - talks
- Supplemental Climate Services
- Data stewardship - BLM – CDMP – NWS support
- Applied Climatology in GEOSS theme areas – AASC coordination
- HCN-M reference climate network
- Added RCC Regional Monthly State of Climate Summary to NCDC National Summary
- (State input for extreme events temp and precip)
- (State summaries of significant climate user applications)
- (Map Events of previous month in climate context)

## AASC Action Teams

**ARSCO’s and RCC’s  cooperation.**
- Ted Sammis (NM), Paul Knight (PA)
- Explore range of communication media to recommend avenues of more frequent communications between RCC’s and their adjoining ARSCO’s.
**2.****	****SC ACIS**
- _Jim Zandlo_ (MN), co-chair with _Keith Eggleston_ (NRCC), Jim Angel (IL), George Taylor (OR), Ryan Boyles (NC) and Lesley-Ann Dupingy-Giroux (VT)
- Develop list of most useful products/queries for SC’s. Develop procedures for making changes in the future. Connect with RCC’s to determine the feasibility and likely costs of implementation.
**3.****	****Mesonet**
- _Ken Crawford_ (OK), chair; Scott Archer (BLM), Stu Foster (KY), Ken Hubbard (HPRCC).[switching to kelly Redmond]
- Review and edit recommendations on siting, metadata, sensors and access for mesonet/modernized legacy cooperative stations. Design recommendations for coop legacy/mesonet for communications, storage and system security.
**4.****	****Official Data - Extremes**
- _Dennis Todey_ (SD) chair, Marjorie McGuirk (NCDC), Jeff Andresen (MI), Steve Hilberg (MRCC), Pat Guinan (MO), Mark Schafer (OK)
- Develop preliminary recommendations to NCDC on how to consider non-NOAA network data as ‘official’. Consider also which data sets should be stored.
**5.****	****Lincoln Accord follow-up**
- _Harry Hillaker_ (IA), chair, Matt Menne (NCDC), Chris Fiebrich (OK), consult with Kelly Redmond (WRCC), Tony Bergantino (WY), and Ken Hubbard (HPRCC)
- Develop a flexible, mobile principle or method of quality assurance of a variety of data sets.

**Notes:**
The NCDC liaison activities included working with the AASC Action Teams
QA/QC, official data archives so that extreme values could be accessed

## 

6a.	Strengthen AASC Members   - Recommend new MOA between SC’s and NCDC
Paul Knight (PA), chair, Derek Arndt (OK), John Young (WI) and Ryan Boyles (NC)
Take an inventory of what are the arrangements between SC’s and their Governor’s Office. Propose a new MOA for NCDC that stresses ARSCO qualifications. 

6b.	Standing Committee for Recommendations on Recertification of ARSCO members
Dave Robinson (NJ), chair, Pat Michaels (VA), George Taylor (OR), Jan Curtis (NRCS), John Young (WI), and Jim Angel (IL)
Determine necessary components of an ARSCO, absolute minimum requirements, a model ARSCO and the process to become one. Recommend the professional development of ARSCO members. 

7.	Recommendations on Advocacy of ARSCO and its members
Mark Schafer (OK), chair, Mike Anderson (CA), Steve Gray (WY) and Derek Arndt (OK)
Develop an advisory plan to advocate ARSCO’s considering a variety of resources, including upper level management from NOAA. Determine potential cost for first level of advocacy. Construct a mentorship plan and its procedures. 

8.	Inventory of AASC SC/RCC members
Paul Knight (PA), co-chair, Nolan Doesken (CO)
Identify membership roles and participation on boards, committees, etc. throughout the profession. Compile list of activities, including honors. 

**	**
**6a.****	****Strengthen AASC Members   - Recommend new MOA between SC’s and NCDC**
- _Paul Knight_ (PA), chair, Derek Arndt (OK), John Young (WI) and Ryan Boyles (NC)
- Take an inventory of what are the arrangements between SC’s and their Governor’s Office. Propose a new MOA for NCDC that stresses ARSCO qualifications.
**6b.****	****Standing Committee for** **Recommendations on Recertification of ARSCO members**
- _Dave Robinson_ (NJ), chair, Pat Michaels (VA), George Taylor (OR), Jan Curtis (NRCS), John Young (WI), and Jim Angel (IL)
- Determine necessary components of an ARSCO, absolute minimum requirements, a model ARSCO and the process to become one. Recommend the professional development of ARSCO members.
**7.****	****Recommendations on Advocacy of ARSCO and its members**
- _Mark Schafer_ (OK), chair, Mike Anderson (CA), Steve Gray (WY) and Derek Arndt (OK)
- Develop an advisory plan to advocate ARSCO’s considering a variety of resources, including upper level management from NOAA. Determine potential cost for first level of advocacy. Construct a mentorship plan and its procedures.
**8.****	****Inventory of AASC SC/RCC members**
- _Paul Knight_ (PA), co-chair, Nolan Doesken (CO)
- Identify membership roles and participation on boards, committees, etc. throughout the profession. Compile list of activities, including honors.

**AASC Action Teams (con’t)**

**Notes:**
NCDC liaison also worked on ways to highlight roles and applications of climatology services

## Official Data- Update 2008

- Meeting June 10 2008-  archive protocols and plans for environmental data management across NOAA.
- DAARWG (data archive and requirements working group) and the data center directors
- NOAA Data Centers, Centers of Data
- Discuss a new framework for NOAA archive architecture to include a new appraisal and approval process
- What to Archive procedure
- internal NOAA team for final review
- Constituent review to follow
- Future NOAA website for public comments

**Notes:**
The role of public and private sector has also been evolving...
The more rigorous the observation system and the longer the time span of activity, the larger the scope of NOAA involvement. Conversely, the less rigorous and shorter, the more opportunities of private enterprise in the climate business.

## A New QA/QC Approach for Daily Data

**GHCN-Daily as the foundation**
**GHCN = Global Historical Climatology Network**
**Tmax, Tmin, Precipitation, Snowfall/depth**
**>23,000 temperature and >40,000 precipitation stations**
**Operational dataset, currently available via FTP**
**Dozens of data sources fully integrated**
**U.S. Cooperative Summary of the Day (DSI-3200, 3206)**
**U.S. First Order and ASOS (DSI-3210, 3211, 3505, 6407)**
**Numerous international collections (including GSN)**
**Twice per day updates for ~9000 stations from four sources (HPRCC, DSI-3201, Environment Canada, and GSOD)**

**Notes:**
Contributed by Dr. Russ Vose

## Suite of complementary Q/A reviews
Focus on the most egregious errors
Internal consistency and frequent-value checks
Temporal and spatial consistency checks
At least a dozen tests per variable
Performed in a deliberate sequence
Rigorous evaluation of each check
Durre, I., M.J. Menne, and R.S. Vose.  2008.  Strategies for evaluating quality assurance procedures.  Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology (in press)
No check has a false positive rate >20%
Less than 1% of all values are flagged (excluding “shifters”)

**Focus on the most egregious errors**
**Internal consistency and frequent-value checks**
**Temporal and spatial consistency checks**
**At least a dozen tests per variable**
**Performed in a deliberate sequence**
**Rigorous evaluation of each check**
**Durre, I., M.J. Menne, and R.S. Vose.  2008.  Strategies for evaluating quality assurance procedures.  *****Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology***** (in press)**
**No check has a false positive rate >20%**
**Less than 1% of all values are flagged (excluding “shifters”)**

**Science-Based Quality Assurance**

**Notes:**
Contributed by Dr. Russ Vose: Addressing questions on long-term climate data:
- Long-term surface observing station data have several problems such as changing instrumentation, changing time of day the instruments are read, and changes in station location.
- Several scientists at NCDC have dedicated much of their professional careers to develop techniques to adjust the time series to account for these problems (homogeneity adjustments). Numerous evaluation studies have indicated that they do quite a good job.
- Two analysis examined differences in long-term trends between stations with good current siting and stations with poor siting, (one paper published and one recently submitted), and they found essentially no difference.  This makes some physical sense because each station experienced the same number of cold fronts per year, etc.
- The worst thing for the climate record would be to move all the stations with poor siting at the same time (as neighbor comparisons are used in the adjustment system).  Indeed, an Austrian climatologist friend is working hard to keep a station (Kremsmünster) with very poor siting (on the north wall of an unheated building) because it has had that exact same poor siting since 1767.
- The HCN Modernization, is designed to systematically improve long-term climate stations, ensure good siting and speed transmission of the data.  Finding places to put stations that are unlikely to experience any environmental change (e.g., no growth of trees causing shading and decreases in winds, no new construction, and no change in nearby agriculture) is difficult. But our experience siting the U.S. Climate Reference Network stations will help.

## Additional bells and whistles (tentative dates)
Spatial regression test (September 2008)
Teleconference with RCCs and SCs (October 2008)
New “shifter” test (November 2008)
Forts data and MRCC COOP data (December 2008)
Other variables (September 2009?)
CDO access (December 2009?)
For more information
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-daily/
Contact: Russell.Vose@noaa.gov
BAMS manuscript on GHCN-Daily (draft by September 2008)
JAMC manuscript on Q/A (draft by December 2008)

**Spatial regression test (September 2008)**
**Teleconference with RCCs and SCs (October 2008)**
**New “shifter” test (November 2008)**
**Forts data and MRCC COOP data (December 2008)**
**Other variables (September 2009?)**
**CDO access (December 2009?)**
**For more information**
**http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-daily/**
**Contact: Russell.Vose@noaa.gov**
**BAMS manuscript on GHCN-Daily (draft by September 2008)**
**JAMC manuscript on Q/A (draft by December 2008)**

**The Near Future**

**Notes:**
Contributed by Dr. Russ Vose

## National Data Stewardship TeamNCDC, NWS (CSPM CPM CSD) AASCActivities & Issues

- QA/QC
- Monthly temp average techniques
- F6 – ACIS – LCD – nowdata – CDO
- CRN – HCN-M – New England
- Original vs Edited Value
- Integrated Surface Data –
- Climate Data Online ACIS
- Hail in snowfall column
- QC Limits in WxCoder III
- Extreme Values
- ThreadEx
- Non-NOAA data source
- Official vs not-official
- Archive vs data storage
- Reference Networks
- CRN
- HCN-AL
- HCN-Modernization project
- SEBN

**Notes:**
The National Data Stewardship Team, which includes many State Climatologists as members, addressed many issues this past year

## http://www.economics.noaa.gov/?

-   _[ ](http://www.economics.noaa.gov/)__ _

## Slide 26

**Notes:**
As we move forward, we will welcome AASC participation in the Climate Services Web Portal

## Climate Services Partnerships collaboration between NCDC & AASC

- Re-iterate - NCDC is prepared to
- Pay publications page charges when NCDC is co-author
- Share professional graphics and scientific diagrams and charts
- Consider appointing ARSCO members as IPA appointments in-house
- Provide a phone bridge for ARSCO meetings that involve NCDC members
- Provide a summary of areas of expertise of NCDC scientists for possible collaboration
- Through the RCCs provide IT support for climate services, Web site support, and in particular Mapping, and scACIS.
- Update 2008 – New role for AASC collaboration?
- Cooperation on the Climate Services Web Portal
- Education & Outreach – Simple linking from state institutions to SCOs, RCCs and NCDC
- Reporting of Climate Extremes as they occur to RCCs for the monthly climate monitoring

**Notes:**
Where do we go this coming year?
Extremes and significant climate events from all your states are a part of that record...work at the regional and state level provides NCDC input to do the national analysis.  

Regional Climate Centers provide climate summaries of the states in their respective regions...and these summaries become part of NOAA’s monthly press release and part of the State of the Climate Report.  
Just last month, for example, with the great mid western floods, the news media presented a view of the floods in the historic context – with a comparison to the floods of 1993 – and that view- the maps and graphs made available to the public and to FEMA,  was made possible through the combined efforts of NOAA’s offices at WFOS, at NCDC, and at the Midwestern Regional Climate Center, with a lot of input from State Climatologists as well.

## Climate Services Partnerships collaboration between NOAA & AASC

- Roles State Climatologists* in the broader NOAA context
- Climatologists for community, county, state-wide boards & tasks teams
- Natural trust establishing administrative, economic, social and legal linkages between climate information sources and local needs
- Listen Locally, then Act Locally**
- Preferred sources of climate information for state laws and regulations wrt climate
- Advise the governor
- drought status
- impact of several climate scenarios on mountain snowpack accumulation and melt
- Impacts on irrigated agriculture
- evaluate changing risks of extreme precipitation
- Update 2008?
- Many suggestions on the AASC list
- New Members on AASC Exec Council
- *Mark Shafer 2007 AMS – Second look at AASC vision statement on climate services in 2003 that harmonized with the NRC's "Climate Services Vision" document.
- **Comments collected from AASClist - Phil Mote WA, Deke Arndt & Ken Crawford OK, Mark Shafer, Nancy Selover AZ, Pao-Shin Chu HI, Dennis Todey SD, Michael Anderson CA, Jim Angel IL, Dave Stooksbury, Jan Curtis NRCS

## xmACIS (NWS Field Office Use)
Applied Climate Information System
Data query tool for NWS local climate research/local product development, and to answer customer climate record inquiries
Complete historical climate database with near real-time update
agACIS (Custom data and products for the NCRS)
NOWData (Customer Use)
Self-service tool
Subset of xmACIS
Free, limited access
For current year and Normals
Portal for ACIS and NCDC information
ThreadEx (Open Use)
Consistent daily temperature and precipitation extremes
Datzilla (Partner Use)
Data discrepancy reporting
400 registered NOAA users
WxCoder III (COOP Use)  
Internet observation entry system

**Applied Climate Information System**
**Data query tool for NWS local climate research/local product development, and to answer customer climate record inquiries**
**Complete historical climate database with near real-time update**
- agACIS *(**Custom data and products for the NCRS)*
- NOWData *(Customer Use)*
**Self-service tool**
**Subset of xmACIS**
**Free, limited access**
**For current year and Normals**
**Portal for ACIS and NCDC information**
- ThreadEx *(Open Use)*
**Consistent daily temperature and ****precipitation extremes**
- Datzilla *(Partner Use)*
**Data discrepancy reporting**
**400 registered NOAA users**
- WxCoder III *(COOP Use)**  *
**Internet observation entry system**

- NCDC-RCC-NWS CollaborationNational Climate Services Data Tools

**Notes:**
As we look towards the future, let’s take examples from the successes of the past