Survey responses, July 2009

Please indicate which category most closely matches your role (select one):

If appropriate, please provide further information about your role here

• I got a doctoral degree in the field of the contribution of mangrove forest on the climate change. I conducted a continous measurments about the concentration of carbon dioxide and other associated environmental variables at the mangrove forest. I will be continous to conducted my futhure research in the same field.
• Not-for-profit government consulting. 95% of our work is for the U.S. Federal government.
• PhD student
• Ph.D student
• PHD student in glaciology and climate change
• PHD
• PhD student
• PhD student Hydrological modeling of the Negro River basin, in the Amazon River basin
• PhD student
• master student majoring atmospheric science
• I'm Irrigation and drainage post graduate student in Tehran University,Iran
• Doctorship Student
• Consultant
• master student
• Master student
• Master student
• M.A. student
• graduate student of Peking University
• a graduate student in GIS and hydrology
• Research assistant
• Assistant Professor
• Research Professor at University of Maryland
• My job demands not only implementation but also creating awareness to all
• Ph.D., Junior Scientist at CMCC
• Msc. research student conducting climate change effect on local level using the IPPC predictions from global models.
• Professionel de recherche (climatologie et microclimatologie)
• I am research scientist in the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina and also to National Weather Service in Argentina.
• Undergraduate at UC Berkeley
• Senior GIS Officer
• Research
• Handling courses related to forest hydrology/watershed management, and climate change as well
• To develop national climate change scenaroius
• International Organization
• GIS Specialist
• Concerned citizen
• Data user.
• US Forest Service Research
• University Professor
• Working on climate change
• Senior Conservation Scientist
• Currently doing my PhD (topic: Monsoon system); Previously worked as a research assistant (focus on climate diagnostics, impacts)
• IPCC Group II Reviewer and regional expert in climate change future scenarios
• Working in Research and development organisation
• State Climatologist
• PhD Candidate
• use IPCC GCM output to downscale
• PhD student
• Researcher in a Government Research Institute
• I also work for a consulting firm that works on sustainability projects in Alaska.
• National Climate CHnage Coordinator for Eritrea
• I am coordinator for UABC of the team that is working in a project about Climate Change in Baja California, Mexico. There are other academic institutions in this project as CICESE and COLEF.
• Researcher
• Climate scientist, working on the climate change related issues
• Short- and long-term water resources and avaliability forecasts
• we are prepear to install regional climate change research and traninig scenter under the arab center for the studies of arid zones and dry lands (ACSAD) web: www.ACSAD.org
• Teaching and promoting research in the area of Environment.
• Scientist
• Water resources engineering and management MSc
• Research Scientist
• State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
• Senior Resercher, Permanent position
• researcher employed by a small business
• research activity
• I'm Executive Director of a Global Change research centre at a local University.
• Providing data to a large project
• DOING MY RESEARCH IN CLIMATE CHANGE AND STRATOSPHERE , TROPOSPHERE INTERACTION WITH REANALYSIS AND RADIOSONDE OBSERVATION AND LIKE TO INCORPORATE IPCC DATA MODELS OUTPUT
• Academic researcher at an environmental think-tank
• project member in the technical cooperation project: Climate Change Adaptation Programme in Peru (PACC), initiated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
• I teach the course of Forest Climatology at Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania and we are involved in researches regarding forest ecosystems management strategies in the context of a changing climate
• Spatial mathematical modeling of global carbon dioxide cycle in biosphere and ocaen. Forcasting for different scenariosus of Kyoto protocol fullfillment.
• Regional climate modelling over the Mediterranean region. -Studies on climate extremes and impacts
• Principal Investigator of Rothmasted Research, BBSRC, UK
• Researcher.
• for research
• research assistant, university research
• Pest risk assessor
• I'm assisstant professor at Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Sana'a University.
• I am an author of spatial mathematical model of global carbon dioxide cycle.
• Research on the impact of climate change on natural hazards in Australia
• GAW Bukit Koto Tabang Station Employee
• I also do my own research
• I role as advisor and researcher for the stakeholders
• doctor student
• The ANNs models can be trained to find the best mathematical relationship between the atmospheric circulation and local climate, without predefined restrictions. Thus the method is able to capture some of the non-linear relationships between local climate and the large-scale circulation (Sahai et al., 2000; Knutti et al., 2003). Through this analysis of downscaling and RNA, we can verify more through detailed technique, possible climate changes on the South America mainly in relation to the precipitation.
• also member of TGICA.
• Completing Masters of Science in Climatology

Please indicate your principal area of interest (select one):

Which IPCC DDC resource(s) have you used (select all applicable):

Did the IPCC DDC resources you accessed meet your requirements:

• yes [71 occurrences]
• No [3 occurrences]
• Yes, thhy did.
• Yes, but handling the data is not so smooth as other reanalysis data may be of my ignorance.we would like to get temperature data monthy in one .nc or .grdlike NCEP and ECMWF files
• Unfortanely, not all the models had the geopotential height variable avaliable.
• not all the data available to download, so some data don't meet the requirement
• some resources meet my requirements.the resources i wanted are more small areas and accurate.
• Somewhat, but they need to be downscaled or input onto regional models
• Not completely, I am using another database now, because an expert told me that database was more relevant for my research. The great thing about your database though, is that you have sunlight data
• mainly, yes
• Yes, GREAT DATA! I wish I also had access to Regional Simulation results, like that of PRECIS for Indian subcontinent.
• Mostly. However, the data resolution was not always sufficient for my studies.
• yes, of course!!
• I can say yes in general, but the scale for studies of impacts is large.
• Yes, within the limits of what is available (of course we would like higher spatial and temporal resolution model output!)
• 75% of the times.
• used WCRP CMIP3 data archive instead
• Yes - our key need were the daily data from the models
• Almost
• Party. Some of them needs to be submitted to file convertion.
• In part. We are still seeking additional data on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability.
• partly - I couldn't find monthly rainfall data prepared in ascii so that I had to analyse image pattern data, which has become too high efford
• yes,to some extent
• yes, especially details fro AR4 were usefull
• ok
• was hard to extract data from the grid. maybe a more flexible way to access specific data would be nice
• yes, but need to add daily and hourly data
• Partly
• Generally yes, but not always. Because I wanted data in grib format sometimes, but DDC just provided netCDF format.
• Yes. I would like to see more data about my region of interest (Red Sea and Gulf of Aden) like monthly observations of climate data, it is very diffecult to get the data here.
• Some datasets that we considered of special interest are listed but not available for download
• NO. I need data at two differennt altitudes. I was able to obtain data only for one altitute.
• yes
• Yes to major extent, but resolution needs to be improved for assessing regional climate picture.
• Yes they did.
• Mostly.
• Not much
• mainly, yes
• Yes our DMH is still doing to get the access
• I use a PC -- beyond ncdump and the equivalent grib tools I have not been able to make tools for accessing nc and grib files work.
• To add software with data to access specific zone will be great help to reduce computation load.
• Yes,but not enough
• Yes, completely.
• The resources fit my requirements perfectly. I could not have completed my research without them.
• Almost all
• not completely
• no, it is very difficult to download the dataset,the download speed is very slow and always stop before download the full dataset.
• I need 6-hourly 3-D data, only one matches my requirement
• Usually but not always. I have recommendations to make about handling the Assessment Report findings.
• Yes. But monthly means sometimes do not meet our requirements. It would be good to have daily data besides monthly means.
• GIS data needs better projections
• The data format is difficult to work with.
• Yes. The IPCC DDC resources were very usefull.
• I think so.
• Yes,although I would use the model climate projections more if they were a bit more user-friendly
• not anougth
• I have trouble getting projections at a sufficiently fine spatial scale
• to some extent, yes
• yes, but if a GIS format could be availed it can be more useful
• In my opinion, construction of climate scenarios from the available raw GCM data is still difficult for someone new to the field. As much as I understand this is a specialised field, the usability of the GCM results should be be irrespective of the user's background. I would appreciate a more clear (preferably stepwise) instruction on how to construct scenarios from the posted raw data for use in research.
• yes, absolutely
• Sure

Have you used data from the IPCC DDC in (select all applicable):

Give further details if appropriate:

• In my thesis
• publication should be coming sometime.
• Climatic Projections
• Tried to emphasize on the need for robust land and water use policies, as well as crop planning, especially for Thar Desert in view of changes predicted in simulation models and the increasing demand for water and mechanisation vis-a-vis vulnerability and resource constraints. Also, trying to figure out the likely impact on wind erosion in the desert. I am more comfortable with ECHAM5 data because of its higher spatial resolution than the other global models, and near-reproduction of spatial patterns noticed in the arid areas.
• Providing technical support to strategic decisions for conservation investments
• An article was recently accepted on the effects of climate change on the parasite Toxoplama gondii in Europe
• Ecological research: impacts of climate change on forest and other ecosystems.
• looking for the water resources due to Global climate changes
• Production of Monthly precipitation averages over Africa showing movement of the ITCZ
• seminaries and research material for a PhD student
• Doing research at present
• Used in dissertation, which is in preparation for publication
• Will use it for my study
• Non-published research
• sorry, I'm not sure.
• preliminary research to be published
• do a course project
• I used the data for my dissertation
• Research in progress being prepared for submission to academic journals.
• down scaling to get locally useful data
• IMPROVING METEOROLOGICAL DOWNSCALING METHODS WITH NEURAL NETWORK MODELS: SOUTH AMERICA RAINFALL
• IPCC findings formed the basis of a book on which I was lead author.
• referenced web site and data options in past proposals
• still unpublished research
• Research for School Projects
• Final Project Report on Climate change and its effect on Miami
• (not yet submitted)
• climate change assessment
• Personal research (as part of larger project)
• Ph.D thesis
• I need the data for a research proposal to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
• We intend to use in the future the data as input for assesing the climate change effects on the local forest ecosystems
• many
• Internship report
• resolution too low for application. Science on Sphere. We had to turn to NCAR/NOAA for high res data sets
• I could not open the file with .nc
• I have used it in research, but it has not yet been completed or submitted for publication, though no doubt it will.
• non-published research
• Generation of future climate scenarios for Southeastern South America for policy decisions on impacts, adaptation and vulnerabiliy
• Sumatera Island Precipitation Data
• Articles in preparation
• time is short
• Article submited
• It is in process to understand over Indian region
• for a GIS class project
• We would like to inform you that the Arab Center (ACSAD) considers as a coordinator of the Framework Convention on climate change, between each of the League of Arab States and the specialized committees of the United Nations.
• Masters of Science thesis
• Climate projection
• My students use it for research projects
• testing activity
• Research presented at conferences
• For background information for thesis and development of methodology

Have you used data from (select all applicable):

What is the most important factor influencing where you go to obtain data? (select one)

Have you used the guidance material provided by the DDC?

Are there other resources which you think the DDC should provide?

• better resolution of gridded data
• softwares that convert one format to another
• Please improve data resolution - both spatial and temporal.
• localy information of the global climate change impact (eg: Sumatera Island)
• data may be provided in MS Access or Excel format
• Training and capacity building
• Data at higher temporal resolution
• Runoff data
• Tmin and Tmax data are not available from simulations of some GCMs at DDC. Many users need both Tmin and Tmax.
• yes
• better documentation of the data sets. In particular error estimates, what instruments were used, and where they were.
• More information about the different grid systems employed in each model. Also links to, or more info on, interpolation and downscaling techniques would be useful.
• If DDC can provide More levels(Its mean can provide the data sets including for Meteorological Parameters for exemple wind 850hPa to 100 hPa),we hope we can do research well in time
• N/A
• yes...
• Training for the developing country institutions and stakeholders
• Step by step instruction on construction of climate scenarios from the raw GCM data on the DDC.
• No
• 1. Regional Simulation results, e.g. from PRECIS, will help a lot to understand the variabilities at a finer spatial scale. 2. I find myself comfortable with the data from WDCC (CERA-www.dkrz.de), because it provides data in ascii format. The only problem is that the data is downloaded in 6 columns, and when the longitude range is longer, one has to re-configure the data columns from the original 6-col set to transfer the data in compatible format in GIS. GRIB and NC formats difficult to open in available GIS software, and need special software and their manipulations that are currently beyond my capacity. Wish, the data centres provided a simple software where one can import and open the data with a single click in WINDOWS (without the need for compilation of routins, etc.). NC data is very compact, but data centres do not provide any user-friendly software. 3. The best format that I get today is from NASA-Giovanni, which provides both the image map and the data download facility (in ASCII; XYZ; Lat., Long, value; NC; others)for any geographical area one wishes. 4. Since 8 years of the present century have passed, some results on simulation results vis-a-vis the observations can be posted for those years (monthly; daily).
• various resolutions (high to low) or a contact to obtain high res if needed.
• not sure at this time
• convertion tools for netCDF
• Climate data series at stations
• Spatial data visualization (mapping) tools
• I thik that Published research free.
• It would be useful to have more data from regional climate models simulations
• I don't think so
• A better description of the grid format of the models. When selecting a region it is dificult to tell what the lat and longs represent (are they the east-west part of the cell or are they the middle of the cell).
• GIS data FORMAT of all the data sets
• Maybe climate scenarios to regional/local scale (12 x 12 km)
• I know there is a lot of interrelated data to present, but the website format is messy and hard to read.
• No, it's just fine!
• Climate data in numerical form (I could not find except those given as image color patterns in specific viewer). Downloadable data sets in tabular forma would be helpful-
• I had a difficult time converting the files I downloaded into something I could use with ArcGIS.
• No
• software to break data
• Data format in CSV format if it was possible.
• Socioconomic but spatially distributed data.
• No
• The possibility to obtain monthly and daily time series, from selected geographic points, easily (like older DDC webpage)
• Information and scenarios for climatic extreme events (disasters) such as Typhoon, drought, flood, ENSO phenomena...
• Convertion files guides.
• I want DDC provides more data used in the lastest IPCC report.
• the daily data of GCMs output
• Yes.
• actual data download options under visualization of maps and other
• we look to make archive for Global climate data Observing system and data Base managment ( GDOS)we need your advice to get Softwer for data base mengment
• Summaries on changes in climatic variability and weather extremes
• Include definition of the GCM grids within the standard output!!! For this we have had to go to the models own pages and find it.
• Yes. I would prefer to present my recommendations directly to relevant persons.
• None I can think of at the moment
• daily means
• files with more high resolution
• no
• May be more on the: 1. data usage and guidance, 2. data treatment and format adaptation
• no
• If available, any downscaled data for different regions of the world
• reading the data with different programming languages.
• I had to figure out how to access data and get it into usable format pretty much the hard way since unix tools don't work on my system and i was unable to recompile sucessfully. I would have found a blow by blow description of how to do certain things like access grib and nc data for a newbie very helpful. Could provide at least some of the necessary material if desired.
• Future weather data that can be used in CENTURY model, as in this model the weather must be continuous, such as last for 100-year.
• Yes, a guide about publications end resources ipcc

What software packages do you use to analyse data?

• IDL
• INFOCROP model
• Grads,
• SDSM
• R,ArcGIS, DIVA, Grass
• Splus, Excel
• NCL, FERRET, GRADS
• MATLAB
• Grib,netcdf
• Microsoft Excel
• R
• ARC GIS
• Spss, ArcGis
• SPSS, Excel and R
• Office, ArcGIS
• xconv (BADC)
• Grads, Ferret etc.
• GrADS, NCL,
• MaxEnt, GARP (ecological niche modelling softwares)
• TCL-NAP
• ESRI ArcGIS 9.2
• Grads, ncbrowse and HDF explorer and actually I am exploring the possibilities of MATLAB with an extension for netcdf data
• Matlab
• R, ArcGIS
• Statistic Downscaling Model
• R, SAS
• ESRI ArcGIS
• ArcGIS
• visual basic
• Maxent, DIVA
• I have not used any at the moment. A very likely option at the moment is MAGICC/SCENGEN.
• Matlab, R, Grads, fortran
• Matlab
• MATLAB, R, CDO, FERRET, GrADS
• MAGICC-SCENGEN, SDSM, and some others of our studies
• matlab
• gis softwares - internal developped tools
• ArcMap
• Matlab
• We look to Oune Regional climate model ( PRICES) from hadley center (Met - Office UK)
• matlab
• GrADS, Matlab, Surfer
• cdo, pingo, R
• Origin
• Grads and Ferret
• NASA's Panoply
• C and its netcdf libraries
• I'm still in the begining, but i'm fammiar with MATLAB, EXCEL and models like DIVA (I just started with it).
• Microsoft Excell, Statistica
• Magic scengen
• Microsoft Excel with a NetCDF file extension add-on.
• GrADS and MATLAB
• R-project, GRASS, ArcInfo
• DIVA-GIS, Maxent, GARP
• ArcGIs and R
• ArcGIS 9.2, R
• IDRISI, ENVI, MATLAB, STATISTICA, ARCxx, EXCELL
• N/A
• ArcGIS
• Panoply, EVA
• grads
• Several statistical packages (Genstat, SPSS) and mathematical software
• SDSM 4.2, ArcGIS 9.3
• ARC/INFO, IDRISI
• Custom programs followed by SPSS and/or Excel. Visualization via ArcGIS.
• The Regional Climate Model PRECIS, xconc, cdat 3.3 and tools form konr shell.
• Maxent, ArcGIS
• custom fortran code, then excel, SAS or Systat as appropriate.
• MS Excel, ArcGIS, SAS.
• Matlab
• Matlab
• ArcGIS
• Excel Surfer (simple GIS package) Programs I write myself
• GIS softwares e.g. ArcGIS
• NCO
• X Win 32, Ferret.
• Ncar Commandline Language, aka. NCL.
• soil and water assesment tool(SWAT)
• Fortran 77
• xconv
• ArcGIS, IDRISI, PCI
• Python, GDAL, NCL
• SPSS
• ESRI Gis software, R
• SPSS
• Grads, Excel
• I use different GIS software like Idrisi, ILWIS, ArcInfor, etc.
• CDAT, python, Mathematica, ArcGIS
• SPSS, Mathlab,excel
• ArcGIS
• NCL
• Matlab
• XCONV, FORTRAN, ARCGIS
• Mainly Statistical Package
• Grads
• GRADS,NCL.
• ncl, ferret
• Netcdf
• Matlab and Stella
• I usually use custome made softwre packages.
• ArcGIS, Microsoft Excel
• Matlab, ArcGIS
• MatLab, Mathematica, Fortran, etc.
• MAGIC/SCENGEN, LARS-WG, SDSM (Wilby et al), IDRISI (GIS), STATISTICA v7.0.
• ArcGIS
• I make mathematical model(s): C++, Delphii, To analyze data I use packages which are the bets in every case
• Microsoft Excel; Matlab;
• To create models: C++, Delphi. To analyze data I use packges which are the best for this aim. I am a professional mathematician.
• Microsoft ones (Excel mainly, plus Notepad to view ASCII data). My major drawback at work is that it takes months of gaining permission to install new software which would help me with data manipulation.
• Matlab
• R, ArcMap, GRASS
• Ferret, GR2M, UltraEdit32
• Ferret and Matlab
• self-written
• the netcdf libraries, matlab, c
• CYGWIN as well Linux Grads
• MS Excel
• ArcGIS and R
• GCMs,SDSM
• Fortran and Grads
• MS Excel, MS Access

Other comments:

• The DDC is an essential resource!
• What I might suggest to improve DDC, is to provide adequate softwares on transforming data to what is usually used in statistical and mathematical softwares.
• I CONSIDER THE SERVICES PROVIDED BY IPCC THE BEST SO FAR FOR THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES. ONE HAS NEVER SEEN SUCH OPENNESS OF APPROACH, NOR SUCH ZEAL TO HELP! IT IS FOR US TO UTILIZE THE OPPORTUNITIES, UNDERSTAND AND APPRECIATE PROPERLY THE SCIENCE AS WELL AS THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS TO INCREASE THE AWARENESS OF THE IMPENDING CHANGES.
• Many thanks for your work!
• I am very pleased that I can these data to enhance my knowledge.
• the IPCC data are so useful to support my research
• Thanks a lot for your help whenever I requested it!
• It could be great to save more 3-D data or give the link where the 3-D data can be downloaded.
• Thank to IPCC for providing all the supporting materials and data free of charge and easilly for download for every researcher.
• Data format could also be GIS suitable eg. ArcGIS ASCII GRID or ERDAS IMAGINE (*.img)
• Nothing
• I am chainging my focus from scenarios and mitigation tools to impacts. The learning process has been longer and harder than i anticipated.
• No comments
• It's a great job!
• No comments
• I work with EXCEL, and it was nice to have a data format that was able to use there.
• The data are in a format that is difficult for occasional users to access.
• I do not think that the IPCC DDC pages are very easy to use. When you click on a link on the left (e.g. Climate models | Summary data | AR4 (2007) etc...) you get to a page called Model output described in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (SRES scenarios), multi-year means so you never know if you are on the right page. Many links take you away from the IPCC pages to somewhere completely different. This is really against all rules for website design and is so non-standard its hard to see where you are. A proper structure would start with a full concise explanation, then go down through each level, making it easy to find and easy to understand.
• IPCC DDC good data source for first approximations of climate change. Thank you!
• If there are other languages such as Chinese in the DDC, it would be more useful and convenient for researchers in non-English speaking countries.
• Re question 12 - it is a balance ... and asking for a choice of 1 is misleading. I need the right data, but it has to be in the right data format too !
• Keep the data coming! If possible, in finer resolution.
• We look to worke togather in ouer region to improve the climate model and enabling activites in arab region and Med.
• It is better if the IPCC DDC can afford the Chinese guidance material. Thanks.
• Your service is powerful and quite complete, but I miss sufficient preparation of provided data in a way that makes it easier for analytical purpose. It is good for demonstation of results and conclusions already done by IPCC. The forecast area shows certain models with different scenarios. I miss a short introduction to the certain models about their intentions and theoretical background. In addition these data are provided in SI units that are not common in engineering science. To find technical solutions in certain areas focuses on targets, where analysing data is often a work has to be done it atmost efficient ways - anyways, to ensure realistic and appropriate technical solutions e.g. in the field of water or energy supply, not only the availlability of data is important. Due to time pressure one has to chose data prepared in the best usable preparation - this is not necessarily connected to approprite data quality. The errors, which are imported by inappropriate data quality will multiply just by reason of required efficiency in engineering work. My suggestion is to thik also about practical application, not only research. Thanks, Joachim Hellmold
• data may be provided in MS Access or Excel format
• I hope the download speed can become more quickly. for example,if I download a dataset that is 16MB and I have to spend 5 hours if I am very luck
• The DDC website is sometimes a bit difficult to navigate. Users need to have a clear idea of what data they want. This is fine for the expert community. However, if a larger audience is to be addressed some alternative forms of data presentation might be advisable.
• Thank you very much for the staff's tremendous effort. Please continue and maintain this service for long time.
• Keep up the god work!
• No comments
• IPPC DDC IS DOING A GREAT JOB
• Minimize missing values in data. Maintain data quality