PACN Monitoring Weather

Wasser, Mark

Long term monitoring of status and trends of weather data for the Pacific Island Network. Climate is widely recognized as a major driver for terrestrial as well as marine ecosystems, affecting biotic as well as abiotic ecosystem attributes. Island ecosystems have been shown to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate variability and change. This weather/climate monitoring project will enable us to describe an important physical part of the ecosystems found in the national parks in Hawaii, Guam, Saipan and American Samoa. The weather/climate monitoring project will be implemented in all PACN parks. The basic approach is to use data from existing weather stations belonging to major weather monitoring programs as well as some stations belonging to the National Park Service (NPS) and the Haleakala Climate Network (Hale-net). The PACN is adding stations in 2010. This project is dependent on the efforts of various agencies and institutions for maintaining stations as well as downloading and posting data. The objectives of this project are two-fold. First, tracking of weather elements to determine short and long-term trends and second, tracking of extreme weather events to determine frequency and patterns of droughts and periods of prolonged wind reversals and other extremes. Annual reports will provide data in tabular and graphic forms, showing monthly and annual data and their variability. In five-year intervals trend reports will be published, showing trends and long-term variability for stations with a long historic record. The aim is to provide data on weather patterns and trends that will characterize ecosystems and aid the interpretation of other natural resource monitoring data.

PACN Monitoring Weather

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