This project will support several areas of global change research in the Caribbean. An existing precipitation data base for the Caribbean will be expanded. This precipitation data set currently consists of monthly average station data, and was compiled from the Climate Prediction Center CAMS station precipitation data for January 1851 through September 1994 and CDIAC Global Historical Climatology Network data base for precipitation for October 1832 through October 1990, with duplicate data ignored. Precipitation data and other data will be augmented by the use of NCEP and ECMWF re-analysis data and TRMM data if available. CDIAC monthly temperature, sea level pressure and station pressure data will be added. SST data will also be incorporated by using the GISST 2.3 data set from the Hadley Centre. Other data sets, including upper air data and soil moisture, from relevant world-wide and Caribbean institutes, including the Caribbean Meteorological Institute (CMI), which have been checked for quality control will also be incorporated. The combined data set will be gridded using an area weighting average in the GrADS R40 format. A preliminary version of this data set has already been used for analyses, but the full version will be checked for validity over the ocean by comparing it with the Xie-Arkin data which has a shorter time span (1997 onward), but includes observed data over the ocean. Satellite imagery and data will be obtained from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez (UPRM). The regional climate model MM5, in collaboration with the Department of Meteorology, University of Maryland, will be used to study climate variability in the Caribbean. The University of the West Indies has created a 2 year post in Climate Modeling for this purpose, and a student presently completing his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland will return to continue the work of the climate modeling at the end of 2 years. The project will provide part of the backbone for a data and information system for the exchange of global change data resulting from IAI-sponsored research between members of research teams in the Americas, including the USA and Canada. This project will specifically give US researchers access to data sets from the rest of the Americas that have previously been inaccessible. The National Science Foundation is the designated U.S. Government agency to carry out U.S. responsibilities within the IAI.
