HAPPENINGS

HCDP manuscript published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

A manuscript describing the Hawai‘i Climate Data Portal (HCDP) was recently published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. This paper marks six years of collaboration between climate and data scientists in Hawai‘i. It also builds upon the foundations laid by many others who have contributed to climate monitoring, data processing, and product development over the past 30+ years in Hawai‘i. The 11 co-authors on this paper represent four different institutions and consist of a range of early, mid, and senior career researchers, as well as two students. Support for the downscaling product development was provided by Pacific Islands and Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Centers Award #G21AC10110.

More to come from the HCDP. Some things currently in the works are: a tool that anyone can use to create climate portfolios, developing an updated Rainfall Climatology 1990-2019, near-real-time daily rainfall maps, and hourly wind speed and solar radiation maps, and mapping daily rainfall in Guam and American Samoa.

Visit them at the Hawaiʻi Conservation Conference on July 30- August 1 at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center.

The Hawai‘i Climate Data Portal (HCDP)

Ryan J. Longman, Mathew P. Lucas, Jared Mclean, Sean B. Cleveland, Keri Kodama, Abby G. Frazier, Katie Kamelamela, Aimee Schriber, Michael Dodge II, Gwen Jacobs, and Thomas W. Giambelluca

ABSTRACT

The Hawai‘i Climate Data Portal (HCDP) is designed to facilitate streamlined access to a wide variety of climate data and information for the State of Hawai‘i. Prior to the development of the HCDP, gridded climate products and point datasets were fragmented, outdated, not easily accessible, and not available in near-real-time. To address these limitations, HCDP researchers developed the cyber-infrastructure necessary to 1) operationalize data acquisition and product production in a near-real-time environment, and 2) make data and products easily accessible to a wide range of users. The HCDP hosts several high-resolution (250 m) gridded products including monthly rainfall and daily temperature (maximum, minimum, and mean), station data, and gridded future projections of rainfall and temperature. HCDP users can visualize both gridded and point data, create and download custom maps, and query station and gridded data for export with relative ease. The “virtual station” feature allows users to create a climate time series at any grid point. The primary objective of the HCDP is to promote sharing and access to data and information to streamline research activities, improve awareness, and promote the development of tools and resources that can help to build adaptive capacities. The HCDP products have the potential to serve a wide range of users including researchers, resource managers, city planners, engineers, teachers, students, civil society organizations, and the broader community.