Canada’s Project for the 1991-2020 Climate Normals

Canada, as the U.S.A. and other countries, is due to produce Climate Normals for the WMO and for other users starting in 2021, and has been planning this activity since 2017. Climate Normals are used in global climate modelling, agriculture, industry, transportation, engineering, economics, and natural resources management. In 2015, the WMO World Meteorological Congress endorsed that the Climate Normals reference period be “the most recent 30-year period at the end of the previous decade”. The Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) is responsible for the production of the next 30-year Climate Normals for Canada (1991-2020). Data analyses are on-going considering that the nature of the Canadian climate observation network has largely changed within the last couple of decades. Previously, the Canadian climate network was mainly comprised of daily climate sites and staffed sites; now it is principally comprised of automated stations with greater dedication to climate monitoring. Recent results of these analyses will be presented including station joining, validation of past metadata, investigation of homogenization methodologies as well as benchmarking with other meteorological services.