Water Theme Data Rescue Progress Report
Jessie Cherry

The regional focus of this effort has been on the Seward Peninsula of Alaska where many physical features such as warm permafrost, coastal erosion, and a dependence on subsistence economies typify the areas of the state that are most sensitive to climate change. The Seward Peninsula also has several long-term climate and hydrologic monitoring stations, making it possible to detect water-related change in this region. Data Rescue and digitization efforts for the Nx2020 program include digitizing early daily cooperative weather records from Buckland, Deering, Noorvik, Teller, and Wales. Additionally, daily data for Nome that is missing from the National Climate Data Center digital record was filled in from scanned copies of the cooperative forms. Next, approximately 900 color and color-infrared aerial photographs from the National Ocean Service dataset for the Seward Peninsula were scanned and digitized at 1800 dpi. These photos were given to GINA for archiving. Additionally, a computer science student built a searchable database for these images. Future efforts, contingent on additional funding, will include the creation of a high quality gridded product for temperature, precipitation, and snow on the Seward Peninsula. A presentation based on this work will be made at the INRA ‘Lessons from Continuity and Change’ conference on May 5, 2009.

Data Rescue Project (pdf)

Project Report by Jessica Cherry (Word document)

Presentation by Jessica Cherry (PowerPoint file)