What is the next version and when will it be out?

What are the specs of the next version and when will it be out?

Lorrie Flint's picture

The current version of the California BCM that supports the posted data is described and referenced in Thorne et al. (2012; http://climate.calcommons.org/bib/development-and-application-downscaled...).

The next version that will be available in late 2013 and will encompass all of California and the entire Great Basin. The BCM for this region will be projected in California Albers Teale, and maintain the 270-m gridcell resolution. The input data will be refined to include all SSURGO county level soils where they exist, STATSGO national dataset where there are no SSURGO data. The current baseline historical climate data used in the BCM was the 4-km PRISM dataset. The refined version uses the 800-m transient PRISM dataset, which is improved in many locations throughout California and does a better job of estimating precipitation and air temperature in high elevation locations. The model results will also include an improved snow calibration that incorporates year round snow data. The current version only used January-April snow course data to accumulate and melt snow. Whereas the current version of the BCM used only 2 models and 2 scenarios from the IPCC AR4 dataset to represent potential future climate and hydrology in California, the next version will include future projections from both the IPCC AR4 and AR5 datasets and thus represent the most current available scenarios. Available results will be posted as 30-year means, and will include time series of selected variables for large management watersheds throughout California and the Great Basin.

All model results reflect the input data and level of accuracy attributed to model calibration. Input data is available for inspection, and calibration results are discussed and distributed spatially in Thorne et al. (2012) to help users understand appropriate application and general levels of uncertainty. Model revisions will attempt to refine the spatial uncertainty and improve the match of simulated hydrologic variables to measured data.

Zhahai Stewart's picture

A small clarification for our users...

The current BCM (this dataset) was delivered in a US national Albers projection (which gets quite tilted in California). For displaying and downloading from the Climate Commons, it was reprojected to Teale Albers as well as being converted to floating point GeoTiff format - still at 270m grid cells.

The upcoming version will be computed in Teale Albers as it arrives from the Flints.

Zhahai Stewart's picture

Here is a map of the current and expanded upcoming geographic extents. It will include not only California, but Nevada and parts of Oregon, Idaho, and Utah.

Sam Veloz's picture

Is the new extent indicated by the hollow red outline polygon or the filled red/pink polygon?

Sam Veloz, Ph.D., Spatial Ecologist
PRBO Conservation Science

Lorrie Flint's picture

The blue is the current domain and is completed to date. The pink is the extended domain intended to encompass the Great Basin (the red line). It is likely that the extent above California into Oregon will be excluded as it's making the model far too big.