The California Climate Data Archive: an assessment after 18 months

The CalClim project to assemble the California Climate Data Archive (CCDA) and provide products to monitor California climate is now is its second year. While acquiring and preparing data sets for CCDA we have encountered both expected and unexpected issues. Two among these include the necessity of accurate data and metadata inventories, and the utility of developing a combined Snowpack Telemetry (SNOTEL) and California Snow Survey data set. Early in the CalClim project we found a need for an inventory of existing climate data sources. The inventory is key to further development of CCDA and may be incorporated in future databases. The principal state data sets have different metadata and metadata formats, and have not been combined before. The two snow data sets are currently ingested from the participating agencies and placed in a working archive at the Western Regional Climate Center. Acquisition of historical data for the two snow programs required very different approaches. Progress has been made on the merging of these two data sets to make them available online at the CCDA website in a format similar to that of our existing data sets. Since a primary purpose of CalClim has been to improve and disseminate knowledge about ongoing climate variability and change in California, new web-based graphical tools are being implemented to view such information. These capabilities are made known through the online California Climate Watch, state climate meetings, and regular contacts with media and other distribution channels.