Friday, March 20, 2020

CRN Data Visualization

Spare time for new blog posts has been in short supply lately, but I'll mention a little project I've been working on that may be of some interest.  As many readers know, NOAA's Climate Reference Network of top-quality climate observing instruments has been gradually adding sites in Alaska over the past several years, and the state's network is now up to 22 sites.  Here's a map (click to enlarge):


All of the data is readily available from NCEI, but options to visualize the data appear to be very limited.  I'm aiming, therefore, to put together a simple interface that provides some charting and perhaps mapping capabilities to summarize the wealth of climate monitoring data that's flowing from the CRN instruments.

Here are a few prototype charts showing departures from normal of climate variables observed at the CRN site near Fairbanks over the past several months.  The seasonal normals are calculated from the full period of record, which is already nearly 18 years long for temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation, but only 10 years for wind speed and humidity.  Click to enlarge the images.






Here's precipitation since the beginning of the year.


Look for more posts on the CRN data in (hopefully) the not-too-distant future.

No comments:

Post a Comment