Authors: Rachel Huber, Riley Chad Hales, and Jim Nelson – Brigham Young University
Title: Improving the Accessibility of Climate Data
Abstract: Climate data is crucial for hydrologists worldwide, particularly in regions with limited gauges and in-situ data. By providing simple access to climate data, we produced a web application, Climate Trends, that has the potential to improve decision-making in hydrology and other fields. Climate Trends, leverages the data and processing abilities of Google Earth Engine (GEE) to provide historical climate data for hydrologic variables, including precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture. The app retrieves and compares historical data from the several sensors which can be downloaded. Climate Trends also allows users to compare data from different remote sensing datasets such as GLDAS, CHIRPS, IMERG, and ERA5 across various regions of the world. Originally developed for INAMHI in Ecuador, Climate Trends has been expanded to INDRHI in the Dominican Republic. The app helps hydrologists quickly access global data based on remote sensing datasets. Our concept tool could be extended to include additional remote sensing or hydrologic model data, including the National Water Model as large datasets are made available for access, allowing scientists and researchers to easily access relevant information.