Climate Monitoring Products: BAMS experience Andrew Watkins [Australia] Meeting of the CCl Task Team on National Climate Monitoring Products, Geneva, Switzerland September 2011

BAMS: The Regional Climate chapter The 2009 edition… 1 Editor-in-chief (Dr. Deke Arndt) 2 editors (Dr. Andrew Watkins [Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Dr. Lucie Vincent [Environment Canada]) 55 pages 82 Authors ~25,750 words 56 figures 5 tables 6 “Blue Boxes” 7 Main Sections 27 countries or regions

BAMS: The Regional Climate chapter While inputs are excellent and contributors enthusiastic and to be fully complimented… Different base periods (61-90, , local base periods e.g., 79-95) Different reporting methods (percentages of normal/below normal/anoms, deciles, anomalies, percentciles, totals,) Different ranking periods (e.g., start in 1900, 1970, 2000 etc) Different units (rainfall mm vs inches vs points) Different terminology (mean/normal/average) Local acronyms Different Tropical Cyclone scales Different use of term “average temperature” (maximum or mean) Fig 7.1. Annual mean temperature anomalies for Canada, 1948–2009. The reference period is 1951–80. (Source: Environment Canada.) Fig Annual mean temperature for the contiguous United States, 1895–2009. (Source: NOAA/NCDC.)

BAMS: The Regional Climate chapter Also… the more general graphical and mapping techniques used, e.g., Line vs column graphs grid vs smoothed/contoured plots trend lines vs running means colours and styles incomplete captions Different seasons (NH: winter = SH summer) seasons not matching calendar years The way information is presented makes a big difference to how it can be interpreted. Half full or half empty?

BAMS: The Regional Climate chapter Solution… attempt to standardise. How? Provide a guide for authors… 1.Base period 2.Precipitation; average annual totals, relative values (anomalies, rankings, percentiles, deciles), Significant events, drivers for events 3.Temperature; average annual temperature (meanTmax + meanTmin/2), rankings, anomalies, percentiles Significant events… Heatwaves and cold snaps, Tornadoes, Dust storms, Fires, Floods, Severe storms,Tropical Cyclones 4. Significant statistics 

BAMS: The Regional Climate chapter Significant Statistics: 1.Mean annual maximum temperature anomaly 2.Mean annual minimum temperature anomaly 3. Mean annual rainfall anomaly 4.Highest temperature (including location and date) 5.Lowest temperature (including location and date) 6.Highest rainfall (including location and date) 7.Lowest rainfall (including location(s) and date) 8.Highest wind speed 9.Greatest snow depth

BAMS: The Regional Climate chapter How did we go?? Feedback was that the guide assisted users Greater emphasis on putting values into an historical context Structure largely adhered to. But… many reports were similar to past reports List of significant statistics – only received from Australia, New Zealand and sub-set from Nordic Countries (removed) Still a lot of work for the editors!! (Base periods and rankings especially)

BAMS: The Regional Climate chapter What did we need to do better? Assist users more by providing better guidance e.g., should anomalies be raw numbers or percentages? Provide a location where can download software to calculate areal means and anomalies from spatially heterogeneous data And/or provide a standard dataset (e.g., ERA or NCEP/NCAR reanalysis) and tools to create regional values A portal to national monitoring products??? A climate monitoring lead centre???

BAMS: The Regional Climate chapter The elephant in the room… There is no mention in the BAMS regional reports of quality of observations or MetaData… How do we ensure that measurements are of the similar quality? What level of Quality Control is acceptable? Should this be described somewhere?

Andrew Watkins Thank you…