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ItemTemperature and precipitation regional climate series over the central Pyrenees during 1910-2013(WILEY, 2017-03-30)ABSTRACT Quality controlled homogenized regional anomaly series of temperature and precipitation are obtained for the central Pyrenees for the period 1910–2013. A 0.1 °C decade−1 positive trend is found for minimum and maximum annual temperature exceeding the significance level of 0.05 for the whole studied period. A significant warming is found in all seasons except boreal spring in minimum temperature and winter in maximum temperature. The annual regional precipitation anomaly series shows a high inter‐annual variability and a slightly negative non‐significant trend of −0.6% decade−1. Non‐significant negative trends of precipitation are found in all seasons for the whole period examined. Considering the recent period 1970–2013, values of temperature trends are generally higher than those obtained for the whole period. For this latest period, all maximum temperature trends are significant while only the minimum temperature trend in winter is non‐significant. Spring is the season that presents the greatest warming, with 0.9 °C decade−1 for maximum temperature and 0.4 °C decade−1 for minimum temperature. Evaluating the same period for precipitation anomalies, trends in the annual, winter and summer series remain negative, while spring and autumn trends are positive although non‐significant. This series represents the longest homogenized climate data set available for the central Pyrenees region, including the newly recovered period 1910–1949, offering new possibilities for climate analysis and paleoclimate proxy calibration.
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ItemTowards a more reliable historical reanalysis: Improvements for version 3 of the Twentieth Century Reanalysis system(WILEY, 2019-10)Historical reanalyses that span more than a century are needed for a wide range of studies, from understanding large‐scale climate trends to diagnosing the impacts of individual historical extreme weather events. The Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) Project is an effort to fill this need. It is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and is facilitated by collaboration with the international Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth initiative. 20CR is the first ensemble of sub‐daily global atmospheric conditions spanning over 100 years. This provides a best estimate of the weather at any given place and time as well as an estimate of its confidence and uncertainty. While extremely useful, version 2c of this dataset (20CRv2c) has several significant issues, including inaccurate estimates of confidence and a global sea level pressure bias in the mid‐19th century. These and other issues can reduce its effectiveness for studies at many spatial and temporal scales. Therefore, the 20CR system underwent a series of developments to generate a significant new version of the reanalysis. The version 3 system (NOAA‐CIRES‐DOE 20CRv3) uses upgraded data assimilation methods including an adaptive inflation algorithm; has a newer, higher‐resolution forecast model that specifies dry air mass; and assimilates a larger set of pressure observations. These changes have improved the ensemble‐based estimates of confidence, removed spin‐up effects in the precipitation fields, and diminished the sea‐level pressure bias. Other improvements include more accurate representations of storm intensity, smaller errors, and large‐scale reductions in model bias. The 20CRv3 system is comprehensively reviewed, focusing on the aspects that have ameliorated issues in 20CRv2c. Despite the many improvements, some challenges remain, including a systematic bias in tropical precipitation and time‐varying biases in southern high‐latitude pressure fields.
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ItemBenefits and challenges of incorporating citizen science into university education.(Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2017)A common feature of many citizen science projects is the collection of data by unpaid contributors with the expectation that the data will be used in research. Here we report a teaching strategy that combined citizen science with inquiry-based learning to offer first year university students an authentic research experience. A six-year partnership with the Australian phenology citizen science program ClimateWatch has enabled biology students from the University of Western Australia to contribute phenological data on plants and animals, and to conduct the first research on unvalidated species datasets contributed by public and university participants. Students wrote scientific articles on their findings, peer-reviewed each other's work and the best articles were published online in a student journal. Surveys of more than 1500 students showed that their environmental engagement increased significantly after participating in data collection and data analysis. However, only 31% of students agreed with the statement that "data collected by citizen scientists are reliable" at the end of the project, whereas the rate of agreement was initially 79%. This change in perception was likely due to students discovering erroneous records when they mapped data points and analysed submitted photographs. A positive consequence was that students subsequently reported being more careful to avoid errors in their own data collection, and making greater efforts to contribute records that were useful for future scientific research. Evaluation of our project has shown that by embedding a research process within citizen science participation, university students are given cause to improve their contributions to environmental datasets. If true for citizen scientists in general, enabling participants as well as scientists to analyse data could enhance data quality, and so address a key constraint of broad-scale citizen science programs.