Minutes of the fourth FGDC Spatial Climate Subcommittee

Teleconference Meeting
September 19, 2001
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/fgdc/subcommittee/

The FGDC Spatial Climate Subcommittee held its fourth meeting, via teleconference, on Wednesday, September 19, 2001.  The meeting began at 10 am PDT, and lasted approximately two hours. Twelve people participated in the teleconference:

Jeff Arnfield Chris Daly Laura Davenport Howard Diamond Greg Johnson (Chairman) Paul Krause Matt Menne Norris Nielsen Dev Niyogi Phil Pasteris Marc Plantico George Taylor  NOAA/NCDC Oregon State University/SCAS USDA-NRCS  NCGC Ft. Worth NOAA/NESDIS USDA-NRCS Dept. of Army NOAA/NCDC Tennessee Valley Authority North Carolina Climate Program USDA-NRCS  NOAA/NCDC Oregon Climate Service

An agenda was distributed before the meeting (attached), and the meeting closely followed this outline.

The group welcomed Laura Davenport from the USDA-NRCS National Cartography and Geospatial Center (NCGC) to the subcommittee.  Laura works with subcommittee member Paul Fukuhara at NCGC.  The subcommittee also welcomed Jeff Arnfield from NOAA-National Climate Data Center (NCDC), who joined Marc Plantico and Matt Menne for the teleconference from NCDC in Asheville.

***Note: Items bolded in the text below are action items, with persons responsible for these tasks also shown***

Metadata / Standards Discussion

Just prior to the meeting Mike Squires distributed a document outlining the new ISO 19115 standard for geographic data (titled Geographic Information/Geomatics).  This new standard will be voted on by participating nations, and should be formally approved by the summer of 2002.  However, the current ISO 19115 draft will most likely see few changes before its final release next year. Subcommittee members are encouraged to peruse this document, if desired.  The FGDC requirements for metadata and standards will likely be the principal basis for this new standard, so at this time it seems unlikely that few changes will be necessary in spatial climate metadata that has already been developed according to FGDC standards, such as the climate station database documentation at NCDC, and the spatial coverages developed using PRISM. The document is approximate 150 pages long.

The metadata discussion focused on climate station databases.  Jeff Arnfield reported that work is underway at NCDC to compile all cooperative climate station history files into one database. After some discussion, it seemed clear that there was a need to develop more specific metadata standards for FGDC relative to climate station data.  In specific, Dev Niyogi and others pointed out the special considerations of climate station data that have a changing temporal component.  Climate station metadata should address this issue, making clear to the user the period of record, temporal changes in data collection, quality control, and other factors.  Persons should consult the minutes of the March 5, 2001 teleconference where a list of additional elements in spatial climate datasets developed by Mike Squires was attached. Recommended mandatory climate metadata included period of record, audit information, input datasets, quality control information and dataset creation process documentation. Howard Diamond recommended that a metadata extension specific to these point climate data characteristics be developed for the FGDC standard. Howard agreed to lead a small group of subcommittee members, and perhaps a few others, in developing this metadata extension.  He will develop a framework to survey people (in the subcommittee and beyond) regarding their needs for climate metadata. Joining Howard will be Jeff Arnfield, Mike Squires (who could not participate in the teleconference), and perhaps Charles Phillips at NCDC. Charles distributed an email prior to the teleconference discussing his role as climate metadata focal point at NCDC.  He writes FGDC formatted metadata records that describe NCDC products.

It was generally agreed that metadata requirements for full spatial climate datasets (gridded coverages, etc.) will continue to follow FGDC standards with few modifications necessary at this time, until a more complete review is made when the new ISO standard becomes final in 2002.

Norris Nielsen described the TVA's 110-year precipitation dataset, which is continually updated with new observations. He mentioned that the TVA River Scheduling organization, using this extensive dataset, regularly produces and uses spatial values of precipitation (e.g., 6-hourly, daily, weekly, monthly) that represent the Tennessee River Basin and various sub-basin areas or watersheds.  Norris will find out more about this dataset, and what metadata have been developed for it. He will also distribute information about the dataset to the subcommittee, and assist in making this valuable database available to the general public.  The subcommittee agreed to assist with support, if needed, in ensuring that the dataset contains full, FGDC-compliant metadata, and that it is widely available.

Subcommittee Reports

Greg Johnson reported that the subcommittee's annual report was prepared late in August, and was distributed to subcommittee members and others at FGDC at that time. This report became part of the USDA-NRCS report to OMB on FGDC and geospatial activities.

Greg Johnson and Marc Plantico developed a 50-word description of climate that was approved by the subcommittee in March, and became part of the revised OMB A-16 document on the coordination of geospatial activities in the federal government.

Spatial Climate Promotion

Several venues were discussed where spatial climate activities, and the work of the subcommittee were or will be presented. These included:

AMS Ag. and Forest Meteorology Conf., Norfolk VA, May 20-24 (Dev Niyogi will be leading this effort)

ESRI Annual Meeting, July 2002, San Diego. (Chris Daly, George Taylor or others from OSU-SCAS will probably attend)

AMS Applied Climate Conf., May 13-16, 2002 Portland (Greg Johnson is the program chair for the meeting; abstracts due Dec. 1)

Amer. Assoc. of Geographers (AAG), March 19-23, 2002, Los Angeles (Greg is presenting paper, and Chris Daly or others may attend)

Geodata Forum, November 2001, Denver (Howard Diamond will be attending)

Intl. Soc. Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) Symposium on GIS theory and applications, incl. global environmental datasets, January 9-12, 2002, Ottawa (abstracts due by 11/15)

Based on these and other upcoming meetings, the subcommittee felt it would be a good idea to promote the work of the subcommittee through the development of pertinent information about our activities. It was agreed that a brochure describing spatial climate subcommittee activities would be developed by Greg, Phil Pasteris and Chris Daly, and would be reviewed by the entire subcommittee. This group will endeavor to have a review copy of the brochure available by November.

Dev Niyogi suggested that subcommittee activities and goals be advertised through the EOS newsletter of the AGU. Dev will pursue development of 3 to 4 paragraphs describing our work for EOS.

There was discussion about the possibility for a more formal paper describing subcommittee activities, such as for the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.  This will be pursued more fully next year when more substantial spatial climate activity has occurred within the FGDC.

Spatial Climate Activities Update

Marc Plantico reported about the new national Climate Atlas CD available for nearly a year now at NCDC. The Atlas contains hundreds of digital maps and can be viewed with software supplied on the CD.  The Atlas CD was promoted at last summer's ESRI conference in San Diego, and the AAG meeting in New York.  At present, they are working on maps of Alaska and Hawaii, and these maps will be integrated with the current Atlas CD of the continental U.S. to form a new CD that should be available by the end of 2001.  They also have produced an Atlas booklet of 20 color, annual maps.  The booklet is 11 x 14" in size and sells for $10.  For more information about the new Climate Atlas of the U.S. see:

http://nndc.noaa.gov/?http://ols.nndc.noaa.gov/plolstore/plsql/olstore.prodspecif ic?prodnum=C00519-CDR-A0001

There was discussion of the National Atlas, a project being led by the USGS for web-based mapping capabilities.  At present, the USDA-NRCS has provided the PRISM 1961-1990 mean annual precipitation map to the Atlas, which is the only climate product currently available. Howard Diamond and Marc Plantico announced that most, if not all, of the 20 annual color maps in the NCDC Atlas booklet also will be available in the near future on the National Atlas web site.  See: http://www-atlas.usgs.gov/ for access to the National Atlas.

It was announced by Phil Pasteris and others that the new 1971-2000 normals of precipitation and temperature for cooperative climate stations in the U.S. are now available through NCDC.  Plans are being formulated within USDA-NRCS and NOAA to produce new spatial climate coverages using these and other data, but no timetable or funding mechanism for the project is presently available.

Greg Johnson reported that precipitation frequency products were being updated by the National Weather Service's Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center (HDSC), in the reorganized Office of Hydrologic Development.  A Precipitation Frequency Analysis Technical Committee (PFATC) was formed, and Greg Johnson represents the USDA on the committee. The PFATC met in March, and recommended that a comprehensive plan be developed to produce new precipitation frequency products for the entire U.S. within 3 years.  This would include digital and some hard copy maps to replace NOAA TP-40 and NOAA Atlas 2 precipitation frequency products, which are now 25 to 40 years old.  A review of statistical procedures used by the HDSC was completed this summer by a team of leading statistical experts.  Presently, plans are being formalized to utilize the PRISM modeling system at Oregon State University for development of all map products for the nationwide effort.  See HDSC's web site for more information:  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hdsc/

Howard Diamond has sent information about the Global Climate Observing System effort that he leads for the U.S. Howard announced that the US National GCOS Report has been finalized and sent off to the US State Department for transmission to the UNFCCC Secretariat. See http://www.eis.noaa.gov/gcos for more information (go to the reports tab).

Dev Niyogi announced that he will be attending the Aspen Global Change Conference.  He solicited subcommittee assistance in preparation for his 45 minute presentation at the conference. He will describe the activities of the subcommittee in his talk, and will stress the need for continuing, expanding and improving conventional climate networks and databases, such as the cooperative surface observing system, for accurate climate change assessments.Other Items

Greg Johnson recommended that a secretary be appointed to assist with notetaking and preparation of teleconference meeting minutes.  It was suggested that this be done on a rotating basis, with a different person performing these duties at each meeting. Matt Menne agreed to take notes at the next teleconference, if he is available for the meeting.

The teleconference then concluded. The next one is planned for the December 2001 or January 2002 timeframe, unless events dictate that one be held before then.

FGDC Spatial Climate Subcommittee Agenda

September 19, 2001
1 pm EDT     10 am PDT

1. Metadata--Climate dataset documentation

• Existing long-term datasets
• NCDC metadata procedures
• NOAA and FGDC perspective
• PRISM datasets
• Follow-up to action items
• Data inventories vs. data access
• Dataset information dissemination to potential customers
• Subcommittee role

2. Standards

• Issues w.r.t. climate data, esp. spatial surfaces
• Current FGDC work in this arena
• Where do we go from here?

3. Subcommittee reports

• Report to OMB, thru NRCS
• Definition of climate for OMB Circular A-16

4. Spatial climate promotion:  conferences, etc.

5. Spatial climate activities updates

• NCDC Climate Atlas of the U.S.
• New precipitation frequency atlas(es) of the U.S.
• New 1971-2000 normals
• Others

6. Any other items