Climatology

Facilities and Resourses

MSU students have direct access to a large number of long-term historical and simulated climate data sets that are maintained locally. These include:

• NOAA daily weather map series
• Summary of the Day for Michigan, the United States, and a large number of locations globally
• Hourly or finer time resolution meteorological observations from the Michigan Automated Weather Network
• Hourly meteorological observations (US airways observations) for Michigan and the Great Lakes region
• Observations from the Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments Regional Raingauge Network
• NEXRAD (Stage III) precipitation estimates for Michigan
• Rawinsonde observations for North America
• NCEP global and regional reanalyses data sets
• Climate simulations from multiple GCMs at daily or finer temporal resolution
• Projected local climate scenarios for selected locations in the Great Lakes region

In addition, real-time meteorological data streams are ingested operationally through the internet data distribution (IDD) system with a satellite backup.

Teaching facilities include a UNIX lab that is equipped with a suite of meteorological software including GEMPAK and McIDAS for analyzing and displaying real-time and historical observations, and a PC lab with state-of-the-art graphical, statistical, and analysis tools. Additional PCs and UNIX workstations are dedicated to faculty and graduate student research projects.

Research instrumentation includes 3-D sonic anemometers, open-path gas analyzers, radiation flux sensors, soil moisture and heat flux sensors, and HOBO microloggers and sensors.