Climate Mapping Challenges in Mountainous Regions
* Daly, C (daly@coas.oregonstate.edu) , Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Oregon State
University, 326 Strand Agriculture Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 United States
Gibson, W P (gibson@coas.oregonstate.edu) , Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Oregon State
University, 326 Strand Agriculture Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 United States
Taylor, G H (taylor@coas.oregonstate.edu) , Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Oregon State
University, 326 Strand Agriculture Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 United States
Doggett, M K (mdoggett@coas.oregonstate.edu) , Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Oregon State
University, 326 Strand Agriculture Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 United States
Mountainous regions encompass some of the most complex climates in the world. The presence
of major topographic features, sometimes interacting with coastal effects, creates a myriad of
spatially complex precipitation and temperature regimes. Typically, only a small number of these
regimes are well-represented by surface observations. Therefore, producing accurate climate
maps for these regions can be quite challenging. PRISM, a knowledge-based climate mapping
system, was originally developed in 1991 to map precipitation in the mountainous western United
States. Since then, it has been both generalized and refined to model more climate variables and
address more climatological processes, and its use has expanded worldwide. Model
improvements have come primarily as a result of lessons learned through repeated applications of
the model and peer-review of the results. This paper will survey some of the major climatological
processes driving temperature and precipitation patterns in mountainous regions, and how PRISM
accommodates these processes. These include elevational gradients, rain shadows, coastal
influences, temperature inversions, cold air drainage, and the varying orographic effectiveness of
terrain features. Specific case studies will be drawn from Oregon, California, Colorado, and other
locations.
<a href='http://www.ocs.oregonstate.edu/prism/' >http://www.ocs.oregonstate.edu/prism/