Reference station networks for monitoring climatic change in the conterminous United States

This paper identifies two potential reference station networks that could serve as near-term substitutes (as well as long-term backups) for the recently established U.S. Climate Reference Network (CRN) in the United States. The U.S. Historical Climatology Network (HCN) is used as the population from which to select candidate sites for these near-term substitute reference station networks. The first potential network is identified by systematically eliminating stations from HCN using a facility location model that minimizes the total number of stations, ensures a fairly uniform coverage of the country, and approximates the planned spatial density of CRN. The second potential network is identified using a more elaborate location model that also maximizes the number of stations in rural areas. Because the primary intent of CRN is to monitor future climatic change at the national scale, an assessment is made of each network's ability to capture historical temperature and precipitation trends in the conterminous United States during the period 1911-2000.