ALM UNDP

Summary:

The images and data featured below show the temperature means in Cambodia by month. The scales for the temperature maps are the same for all months. The images were created by Dr. Michael J. Puma, Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University, Center for Climate Systems Research, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The data used to create the images were downloaded from WorldClim - Zone 29 and are based on the methodology described in: Hijmans, R.J., S.E. Cameron, J.L. Parra, P.G. Jones and A. Jarvis, 2005. Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology 25: 1965-1978.

A detailed methodology is presented in the above paper. Hijmans et al. (2005) generated the data through interpolation of average monthly climate data from weather stations on a 30 arc-second resolution grid. These authors note that “Uncertainty is highest in mountainous and in poorly sampled areas”. Certainly Cambodia is a poorly sampled area, so we must recognize this condition when assessing these data. Hijmans et al. (2005) clarify as follows: “The high resolution of our surfaces does not imply that the quality of the data is necessarily high in all places. The quality of the surfaces is spatially variable and depends on the local climate variability in an area, the quality and density of the observations, and the degree to which a spline can be fitted through it.”

Three communes (Ta Nuon, Kaoh Kapi, Peam Krasaob) did not match the land mask of the WorldClim dataset, so the lat-long coordinates were adjusted to match a nearby land cell.

Sources: The data were obtained from http://www.worldclim.org/: Hijmans, R.J., S.E. Cameron, J.L. Parra, P.G. Jones and A. Jarvis, 2005. Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology 25: 1965-1978.

Image(s):