News Archive
July 1999

The Dept. of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) has released an important new Numeric Data Package (NDP): United States Historical Climatology Network Daily Temperature, Precipitation, and Snow Data for 1871-1997 (ORNL/CDIAC-118, NDP-070). The data were contributed by David Easterling, Thomas Karl, Jay Lawrimore, and Stephen Del Greco of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). The NDP contains daily observations of maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation amount, snowfall amount, and snow depth from 1062 observing stations across the contiguous United States. These data are useful in regional climate analyses as well as for climate model validation and climate impact assessment.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed a system that will integrate various databases from USGS scientific investigations with digital and Internet capabilities to provide scientific decision support. The Digital Earth Explorer (DE2), an interactive program, makes map coverages and data sets available via the Internet for decision making on energy and related land-management issues.

Data from the Cloud-screened Cimel sunphotometer (CSPHOT) located at the Dept. of Energy's Southern Great Plains Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site are now available at ARM Archive. These data, which are named sgpcsphotaotpwfiltX1.00.YYYYMMDD.hhmmss.raw.asc, include aerosol optical thickness (AOT) as a function of 7 wavelengths (340, 380, 440, 500, 670, 870, and 1020 nm) and precipitable water in centimeters derived from measurements in the 940 nm band.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program has released a new data stream (sgpsurflogC1.a1.yyyymmdd.hhmmss.cdf) that contains reports on vegetation, row crops, conditions of winter wheat, moisture and conditions of surface soil at the the Southern Great Plains site. Data collection is on a monthly basis and covers a time frame beginning October 1995. These data are available from the ARM Archive.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has released a Fact Sheet on the world's glaciers. Entitled Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World, the document describes effects of glacial evolution on global sea level. The atlas is expected to be completed in 2001 and will provide an accurate regional inventory of the areal extent of glaciers on our planet from 1972-1982.