1. ET-NCMP Palm Plaza Hotel, Marrakech 15 September 2015

2. Overview NCMPs Rationale Calculation of indices Interpolation Formats, data and metadata

3. Who is the guidance aimed at? The guidance is aimed at the people who will have to calculate the NCMP from scratch. It implies some familiarity with Maths statistics and programming Needs to be detailed enough that anyone who has that familiarity can code it It’s distinct from a manual for working the software, which we would also need

4. NCMP short list 1.Mean temperature anomaly, area-averaged 2.Percentage of normal rainfall, area-averaged 3.Standardised Precipitation Index, area-averaged 4.Number of days with Tmax > 90 th percentile, area-averaged 5.Number of days with Tmin < 10 th percentile, area-averaged 6.Indicator for extreme events

5. Mean conditions 1.Mean temperature anomaly, area-averaged 2.Percentage of normal rainfall, area-averaged 3.Standardised Precipitation Index, area-averaged 4.Number of days with Tmax > 90 th percentile, area-averaged 5.Number of days with Tmin < 10 th percentile, area-averaged 6.Indicator for extreme events

6. (More) extreme conditions 1.Mean temperature anomaly, area-averaged 2.Percentage of normal rainfall, area-averaged 3.Standardised Precipitation Index, area-averaged 4.Number of days with Tmax > 90 th percentile, area-averaged 5.Number of days with Tmin < 10 th percentile, area-averaged 6.Indicator for extreme events

7. Overlap with ETCCDI Aim was to use ETCCDI and related indices (Tx90p, SPI) These are already widely used, understood and scientifically useful Possibility of sharing code, workshops Two-way sharing: NCMPs could be mechanism for regular updates of ETCCDI indices

8. Quality control Possibly use R Climdex for this Need to assess homogeneity also (RH Test) We will discuss these later, but we do need to ensure that quality control is thought about and, ideally, performed on the data

9. Interpolation Need some way to average across a country Proposal was to use Ordinary Kriging onto a regular grid Kriging is the name for a family of interpolation techniques which have various “nice” properties Best Linear Unbiased Estimator (given certain assumptions) Works reasonably well even when the assumptions are not perfectly adhered to

10. Formats Need NCMP value, country ID, year, month Metadata including: Version of the software Number of stations Base period Quality/homogeneity flag Focal point contact Needs to disseminate whole data set and updates Eventually aim for BUFR for transmission, with a more “human” format for general use.

11. Structure of guidance document Introduction Rationale for NCMPs Base periods, limitations, strengths Method for generating the products QC Calculating the station indices Calculating the variogram Kriging/interpolation Averaging the index Updates, monthly and annual Dissemination Q&A