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There is a great need for gridded daily precipitation datasets to support a wide variety of disciplines in science and industry. Production of such datasets faces many challenges, from station data ingest to gridded dataset distribution. The quality of the dataset is directly related to its information content, and each step in the production process provides an opportunity to maximize that content. The first opportunity is maximizing station density from a variety of sources and assuring high quality through intensive screening, including manual review. To accommodate varying data latency times, the Parameter-Elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) Climate Group releases eight versions of a day's precipitation grid, from 24 h after day's end to 6 months of elapsed time. The second opportunity is to distribute the station data to a grid using methods that add information and minimize the smoothing effect of interpolation. We use two competing methods, one that utilizes the information in long-term precipitation climatologies, and the other using weather radar return patterns. Last, maintaining consistency among different time scales (monthly vs daily) affords the opportunity to exploit information available at each scale. Maintaining temporal consistency over longer time scales is at cross purposes with maximizing information content. We therefore produce two datasets, one that maximizes data sources and a second that includes only networks with long-term stations and no radar (a short-term data source). Further work is under way to improve station metadata, refine interpolation methods by producing climatologies targeted to specific storm conditions, and employ higher-resolution radar products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Several crops have recently been identified as potential dedicated bioenergy feedstocks for the production of power, fuels, and bioproducts. Despite being identified as early as the 1980s, no systematic work has been undertaken to characterize the spatial distribution of their long‐term production potentials in the United states. Such information is a starting point for planners and economic modelers, and there is a need for this spatial information to be developed in a consistent manner for a variety of crops, so that their production potentials can be intercompared to support crop selection decisions. As part of the Sun Grant Regional Feedstock Partnership (RFP), an approach to mapping these potential biomass resources was developed to take advantage of the informational synergy realized when bringing together coordinated field trials, close interaction with expert agronomists, and spatial modeling into a single, collaborative effort. A modeling and mapping system called PRISM‐ELM was designed to answer a basic question: How do climate and soil characteristics affect the spatial distribution and long‐term production patterns of a given crop? This empirical/mechanistic/biogeographical hybrid model employs a limiting factor approach, where productivity is determined by the most limiting of the factors addressed in submodels that simulate water balance, winter low‐temperature response, summer high‐temperature response, and soil pH, salinity, and drainage. Yield maps are developed through linear regressions relating soil and climate attributes to reported yield data. The model was parameterized and validated using grain yield data for winter wheat and maize, which served as benchmarks for parameterizing the model for upland and lowland switchgrass, CRP grasses, Miscanthus, biomass sorghum, energycane, willow, and poplar. The resulting maps served as potential production inputs to analyses comparing the viability of biomass crops under various economic scenarios. The modeling and parameterization framework can be expanded to include other biomass crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]