Summary:

The Vegetation/Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis Project (VEMAP) was a multi-institutional, international effort that addressed the response of biogeography and biogeochemistry to environmental variability in climate and other drivers in both space and time domains. The objectives of VEMAP were to study the intercomparison of biogeochemistry models and vegetation type distribution models (biogeography models) and determine their sensitivity to changing climate, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and other sources of altered forcing.

The VEMAP climate data set includes daily, monthly, and annual climate data for the conterminous United States, including maximum, minimum, and mean temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, and humidity. Seasonal mean surface wind speed is also provided. The monthly, seasonal, and annual data are long-term climatological means and are on the CD-ROM and HTTP site under the subdirectory /monthly. Annual averages are simple means of the 12 monthly fluxes. The daily set presents a "characteristic year" in which monthly averages or accumulations of the daily values match the long-term monthly climatology but where the daily series has variances and covariances characteristic of a station's weather record. The daily data are on the CD-ROM and HTTP site in the subdirectory /daily.

A complete user's guide to the VEMAP Phase 1 database, which includes more information about this data set, can be found at http://daac.ornl.gov/daacdata/vemap-1/comp/Phase_1_User_Guide.pdf

The ORNL DAAC maintains additional information associated with the VEMAP Project.

Data Citation:

Cite this data set as follows (data citation revised on January 15, 2003):

Kittel, T.G.F., N.A. Rosenbloom, T.H. Painter, D.S. Schimel, H.H. Fisher, A. Grimsdell, VEMAP Participants, C. Daly, and E.R. Hunt, Jr. 1998. VEMAP 1: U.S. Climate, 1961-1990. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. http://dx.doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/224.

References:

Kittel, T. G. F., N. A. Rosenbloom, T. H. Painter, D. S. Schimel, and VEMAP Modeling Participants. 1995. The VEMAP integrated database for modeling United States ecosystem/vegetation sensitivity to climate change. Journal of Biogeography 22:857-862.

Document Information:

Document Review Date:

12-Feb-2002