Sectors like agriculture, health and water resources want information on how climate extremes affect their operations. But information on extremes is often buried in meteorological data and is not directly applicable to specific sectors. Climpact has been developed to address these concerns.
The Climpact open source package for R reads in meteorological data (daily minimum and maximum temperatures, as well as daily precipitation) and delivers the frequency, duration and magnitude of various climate extremes that are directly relevant to each sector. Indices calculated by Climpact are available at both monthly and annual timescales.
The Expert Team on Sector-Specific Climate Indices (ET-SCI)
The climate extremes indices calculated by Climpact were recommended by the World Meteorological Organization's Expert Team on Sector-Specific Climate Indices (ET-SCI) in conjunction with sector experts.
The ET-SCI was an international team of climate scientists dedicated to improving the availability and consistency of sector-specific climate indices through the creation of software, regional workshops, research, and training materials.
The ET-SCI included:
- Lisa Alexander (co-lead) (UNSW Sydney, Australia)
- Adam Kalkstein (co-lead) (United States Military Academy, USA)
- Atika Kasmi (MAROC-Météo, Morocco)
- Tosiyuki Nakaegawa (Japan Meteorological Agency, Japan)
- Jorge Vazquez Aguirre (Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico)
- Danielle Barros Ferreira (National Institute of Meteorology, Brazil)
- Lia Megrelidz (Ministry of Environmental Protection & Agriculture, Georgia)
Associated Experts included:
- Nicholas Herold (New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Australia)
- Margot Bador (UNSW Sydney, Australia)