Abstract

GIS Climate Change Scenario Portal
Track: Climate Change and Conservation
Authors: Jennifer Boehnert, Olga Wilhelmi, Kevin Sampson

There is a growing demand for climate model projections by a number of different user domains which typically work with GIS. This interest has opened the door for interoperability between atmospheric datasets and GIS tools. The GIS Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has been distributing climate change scenarios data in shapefile and textfile format from the web since 2005. The GIS Climate Change Scenarios portal marks the first time that users may access NCAR data from the web in standard GIS data formats. To-date, more than 3500 users from 133 countries have accessed the climate projections through the data portal for a number of projects ranging from conservation to adaptation studies. Through our next generation portal, to be released the summer of 2011, the users will be able to access climate change analysis products such as seasonal and annual averages, and climate anomalies.