5 Process

For the core species habitat models developed by the ABMI, we have adopted the following process for using and extracting relevant climate data. Projects outside the scope of the core species habitat models may use alternative sources of climate data depending on the needs of the project. Any questions about this process, or how to calculate specific information, can be directed to Brandon Allen ().

5.1 Provincial Climate Surface

To create a 1-km2 climate surface for Alberta, we used the ClimateNA software (version 7.4) and queried the API using the ClimateNRr package. This package is freely available and allows users to batch process large amounts of climate data through R. The core ClimateNA software also allows batch processing, so either can be used depending on our application. Though you can perform a query through the ClimateNA web API, we recommend downloading the software and making requests locally. This maintains the confidentiality of our sites as is quicker due to the rate limits the web API has in place (100 sites per request, 100 requests per day).

The ClimateNA software requires three pieces of information Latitude, Longitude, and Elevation. For our 1-km2 climate surface, Latitude and Longitude were calculated from the centroid of each polygon. Elevation was calculated as the mean value derived from ALOS World 3D (version 3.2) which is a global 30m digital surface model. The new climate data was then combined with other relevant attributes (e.g., natural subregions, percent water, etc) to create a new kgrid that will support our analyses.

A detailed script for how this extraction was performed can be found in this repository (src/02-climate-extraction.R). In addition, details about the new kgrid can be found in our internal technical document repository.

5.2 Site level Summaries

We now that we have the ability to create site specific climate information. Climate data for survey locations will be processed as follows:

  • If the site coordinates are publicly available, users can extract their own climate data.
  • However, if the site locations are not public, climate extractions will be requested through the Geospatial Centre.
  • In situations where elevation data is unavailable for a survey location, climate data will be extracted from the the new kgrid based solely on their coordinates.