Research of the Grinnell Resurvey Project

Climate Models

One of the primary research questions is, how have species changed from the original survey period to the present? One aspect of that question is whether or not climate change has played a role. To answer that, we needed to seek out and develop climate models for the historic period as well as the current. Researchers attempted to develop their own through a method of interpolation called Anusplin using weather station data. These Anusplin climate surfaces were compared it to another method, PRISM, which we contrast below.

For each of these methods we have reconstructed surfaces for two time periods for the Western US:

  1. Historic : 1900 - 1940
  2. Current : 1980-2005

Reconstructions made through Anusplin are available at 2 spatial resolutions:

  1. ~1km squared
  2. ~4km squared

Reconstructions from PRISM are only available at ~4km squared.

Direct comparisons of these two historic reconstructions of climate surfaces are described in detail in:

Parra, J.L. and W.B. Monahan. Submitted. Influence of climate data uncertainty in modeling geographic responses of California mammals to 20th century climate change. Global Change Biology.


Data Available for Downloading:

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Species Shifts Through Time

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