Track: Water Resources
Assessing Climatological Model Output with GIS
William PattersonGeographic information systems are increasingly being associated with climatological research as flexible utilities in which to develop and explore modeled data. PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) is a climate-mapping expert system developed by Dr. Christopher Daly and staff from the Oregon Climate Service (OCS) at Oregon State University (OSU). PRISM utilizes a digital elevation model (DEM) and a weighted regression technique to distribute point climate measurements to a geographic grid. PRISM exhibited superior results over various kriging methods in a comparative study of regional precipitation mapping. While the PRISM software is not available to the public, many products and data sets produced by PRISM are available over the Internet. This paper will provide a brief overview of climate mapping with PRISM and describe how ArcView GIS and the ArcView Spatial Analyst extension have been customized with Avenue to assist with formatting PRISM input files and assessing PRISM output data. The availability of GIS-compatible PRISM datasets will also be discussed.
William Patterson
CA Dept of Fish and Game
1730 I Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
USA
Telephone: 916-323-1484
Fax: 916-323-1431
E-mail: wpatters@dfg.ca.gov