SAFARI 2000 Global Historical Climatology Network, V. 1, 1874-1990 ------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract -------- This dataset consists of a southern Africa subset of the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) database. All stations with the following bounding coordinates are included in this subset: 5W - 60E and 5N - 35S. There are 3 files available one each for precipitation, temperature, and pressure data. Vose, R. S., R. L. Schmoyer, P. M. Steurer, T. C. Peterson, R. Heim, T. R. Karl, and J. K. Eischeid. 2002. SAFARI 2000 Global Historical Climatology Network, V. 1, 1874-1990. Available on-line [http://www.daac.ornl.gov/] from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. Within this subset the oldest data dates from 1874 and the most recent, 1990. This database contains monthly temperature, precipitation, sea-level pressure, and station-pressure data for thousands of meteorological stations worldwide. The database was compiled from pre-existing national, regional, and global collections of data as part of the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) project, the goal of which is to produce, maintain, and make available a comprehensive global surface baseline climate data set for monitoring climate and detecting climate change. It contains data from roughly 6000 temperature stations, 7500 precipitation stations, 1800 sea level pressure stations, and 1800 station pressure stations. Each station has at least 10 years of data, 40% have more than 50 years of data. Spatial coverage is good over most of the globe, particularly for the United States and Europe. Data gaps are evident over the Amazon rainforest, the Sahara desert, Greenland, and Antarctica. The earliest station data are from 1697; the most recent from 1990. The database was created from 15 source data sets, including: The National Climatic Data Center's (NCDC's) World Weather Records CAC's Climate Anomaly Monitoring System (CAMS) NCAR's World Monthly Surface Station Climatology CIRES' (Eischeid/Diaz) Global precipitation data set P. Jones' Temperature data base for the world S. Nicholson's African precipitation database Quality Control of the database included visual inspection of graphs of all station time series, tests for precipitation digitized 6 months out of phase, tests for different stations having identical data, and other tests. This detailed analysis has revealed that most stations (95% for temperature and precipitation; 75% for pressure) contain high-quality data. However, gross data-processing errors (e.g., keypunch problems) and discontinuous inhomogeneities (e.g., station relocations and instrumentation changes) do characterize a small number of stations. All major data processing problems have been flagged (or corrected, when possible). Similarly, all major inhomogeneities have been flagged, although no homogeneity corrections were applied. The ORNL-DAAC has GHCN data dating back to 1697 with the most recent data dating back to 1990. In order to get the most recent GHCN data please visit the National Climatic Data Center. ========================================================================= Background Information ---------------------- Investigators: Jon K. Eischeid jon@CDC.noaa.gov Richard Heim Richard.R.Heim@noaa.gov Thomas R. Karl Thomas.R.Karl@noaa.gov Thomas C. Peterson Thomas.C.Peterson@noaa.gov Richard L. Schmoyer schmoyerrljr@ornl.gov Peter M. Steurer Peter.M.Steurer@noaa.gov Russell S. Vose Project: SAFARI 2000 Data Set Title: SAFARI 2000 Global Historical Climatology Network, V. 1, 1874-1990 Site: Southern Africa Westernmost Longitude: 5 Easternmost Longitude: 60 Northernmost Latitude: 5 Southernmost Latitude: -35 Start Date: 1837-07-01 End Date: 1990-12-31 Temporal Resolution: Monthly Data Set Citation: Vose, R.S., R.L. Schmoyer, P.M. Steurer, T.C. Peterson, R. Heim, T.R. Karl, and J.K. Eischeid. 1992. The Global Historical Climatology Network; Long-Term Monthly Temperature, Precipitation, Sea Level Pressure, and Station Pressure Data (ORNL/CDIAC-53, CDIAC NDP-041). Southern African subset extractions of this data were performed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory: ORNL DAAC User Services Office ornldaac@ornl.gov +1 (423) 241-3952 Data Set Link: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ ========================================================================= Data File Information --------------------- This data set consists of 3 separate data files. Each file is comma-delimited ASCII containing station ID# and one of three parameters: 1.ghcn_precip_dat.zip -- precipitation data 2.ghcn_pressure_dat.zip -- pressure data 3.ghcn_temp_dat.zip -- temperature data A fourth file "ghcn_stations.dat" contains station location information. File Compression Information ---------------------------- For this archive, the data files have been compressed with the MS Windows-standard Zip compression scheme. These files were compressed using Aladdin's DropZip on a Macintosh. DropZip uses the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, also used in Zip and PKZIP programs. The compressed files may be uncompressed using PKZIP (with the -expand option) on MS Windows and UNIX, or with StuffIt Expander on the Mac OS. You can get newer versions from the PKZIP Web site at http://www.pkware.com/shareware/. ========================================================================= Procedure Used to Create the Southern Africa Subset --------------------------------------------------- The data were obtained from the ORNL-DAAC website. These .Z files (available from the ORNL-DAAC) were modified into three (precipitation, pressure, temperature) .csv files that contained ID#, longitude decimal degrees, and latitude decimal degrees and imported into ArcInfo. Point coverages were then created and added to a view in ArcView 3.1. In addition to the point coverages, a polygon was created in ArcInfo using the guidelines for the Safari 2K Study Area. Bounding Coordinates: West : 5 East : 60 North: 5 South: -35 Once the points and the polygon were displayed, ArcView shapefiles containing only The points located inside the polygon were created. Finally the matching attributes from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) data were joined and comma delimited (.dat) files were created. ========================================================================= Legend & Additional Sources of Information ------------------------------------------ None.