cc: david.parker@metoffice.gov.uk, Phil Jones , tomas@irinnews.org date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:26:29 -0400 from: Thomas C Peterson subject: Re: Fwd: raw data sets to: Omar Baddour Dear Tomas & Omar, The request is not as simple as it seems. Mean global temperature is widely available, e.g.: [1]http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html or more generally and with other links [2]http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/monitoring.html Extremes are another matter. To determine extremes one needs at least daily data. Many countries are reluctant to provide long-term daily data. What data daily data my institution has been able to acquire can be gotten from: [3]http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-daily/ as they are all in our Global Historical Climatology Network - Daily. To get a better understanding of changes in extremes a great deal of work has been done around the world holding workshops, some that Omar has been key to making happen, some coordinated by an Expert Team that Phil and David are both members. I'll attach a paper about these workshops that I wasn't going to release broadly for a few more days as it won't be published until later this week or so. Another relevant paper on Extremes is available from [4]http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadex/HadEX_paper.pdf. The paper doesn't include the results of recent workshops such as one in Brazzaville, Congo. Many of the countries would not release their daily data but did agree to release indices of extremes that describe how extremes are changing. These indices can be obtained from the Expert Team's web site: [5]http://cccma.seos.uvic.ca/ETCCDI/ and I believe also in the gridded form in the HadEx extremes data set ([6]http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadex/). This would probably be easiest but there might be additional information for some parts of the world available via GHCN daily or the ET indices from recent workshops that might be helpful to you. For many results, though, you might want to check IPCC out first to see what figures or analyses it presents. Good luck. Regards, Tom Peterson Omar Baddour said the following on 9/16/2008 11:13 AM: Dear David, Phil and Tom OCHA is a UN humanitarian organisation ( [7]http://ochaonline.un.org/AboutOCHA/tabid/1076/Default.aspx) . They are actively involved in emergency responses during natural hazards in particular those due to climate extreme events. OCHA has send to WMO a request for several type of data sets which I presume that your institutions could make access to, if not all at least part of it . Would you be able to help in this request. Should be there a need for an official letter from WMO, please just let me know. Many thanks Omar _______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: raw data sets From: Tomas de Mul [8] Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:46:54 +0200 To: [9]"'obaddour@wmo.int'" [10] To: [11]"'obaddour@wmo.int'" [12] Dear Mr. Baddour, As per our telephone conversation I am writing to you about climate and temperature data. UN OCHA is currently working on an advocacy campaign to highlight the impact of climate change on hu manitarian action. An important aspect will be to make the case for different temperatures and incre ased extreme weather events. We are looking for data sets (so not images or graphs that have already combined the data) on the fo llowing: - Global combined average temperature for the last 150 years until 2008. - Data showing increase in temperature extremes (high & low) - Data showing increase in extreme precipitation events - Data showing increase in extreme drought events - Data showing increase in extreme storm (cyclone type) events The data will be used by OCHA to create maps, images etc to indicate trends We will credit the sourc e of the data accordingly. Could you give me an indication of when we could expect a response? Your help is much appreciated! Kind regards, Tomas de Mul Tomas de Mul UN OCHA/IRIN South Africa Cell: +27 (0)82 410 8950 Office: +27 (0)11 895 1900 Fax: +27 (0)11 784 6759 E-mail: [13]tomas@irinnews.org Web: [14]www.irinnews.org Help save paper - do you need to print this email? -- Thomas C. Peterson, Ph.D. NOAA's National Climatic Data Center 151 Patton Avenue Asheville, NC 28801 Voice: +1-828-271-4287 Fax: +1-828-271-4876 Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\Peterson-Manton-Workshops-BAMS2008.pdf"