Type TIF
The Monthly Precipitation data set consists of 12 raster files, one for each month, showing mean values derived from monthly precipitation readings. The source data covers the years 1950-2000; individual weather stations used to supply the source data may not have data available for all the years.
The North America climate data were derived from WorldClim, a set of global climate layers developed by the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, in collaboration with The International Center for Tropical Agriculture and Rainforest CRC with support from NatureServe.
The global climate data layers were generated through interpolation of average monthly climate data from weather stations across North America. The result is a 30-arc-second-resolution (1-Km) grid of mean temperature values. The North American data were clipped from the global data and reprojected to a Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection.
The Total Annual Precipitation data set is a raster file showing precipitation means derived from monthly precipitation readings. The source data covers the years 1950-2000; individual weather stations used to supply the source data may not have data available for all the years.
Background information on the WorldClim database is available in: Very High-Resolution Interpolated Climate Surfaces for Global Land Areas; Hijmans, R.J., S.E. Cameron, J.L. Parra, P.G. Jones and A. Jarvis; International Journal of Climatology 25: 1965-1978; 2005.
Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). 2011. “North American Environmental Atlas - Monthly Precipitation, 1950-2000”. Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. Ed. 1.0, Raster digital data [1-km].
This material is licensed under CC BY 4.0, allowing non-exclusive rights to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, including for commercial purposes, so long as attribution is given to the creator.
| West | -180 | East | -50 |
| North | 85 | South | 14 |
| Maximum (zoomed in) | 1:5,000 |
| Minimum (zoomed out) | 1:150,000,000 |
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is an international organization created by Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), which came into force at the same time as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The CEC was established to address regional environmental concerns, help prevent potential trade and environmental conflicts, and to promote the effective enforcement of environmental law. As of 2020, the CEC operates in accordance with the Environmental Cooperation Agreement, which entered into force at the same time as the CUSMA/T-MEC/USMCA trade agreement. Background information on the WorldClim database is available in: Very High Resolution Interpolated Climate Surfaces for Global Land Areas; Hijmans, R.J., S.E. Cameron, J.L. Parra, P.G. Jones and A. Jarvis; International Journal of Climatology 25: 1965-1978; 2005 (http://www.worldclim.org/worldclim_IJC.pdf). This data set is available in several formats, including TIF, Map package, and a PDF Map, along with other files appropriate to particular format, such as .lyrx and .qlr files.
Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). 2011. “North American Environmental Atlas - Monthly Precipitation, 1950-2000”. Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. Ed. 1.0, Raster digital data [1-km].
North America
This material is licensed under CC BY 4.0, allowing non-exclusive rights to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, including for commercial purposes, so long as attribution is given to the creator.
Data completeness reflects the content of the original WorldClim data. See http://www.worldclim.org/methods for maps showing the general distribution of weather stations used to supply the source data. Weather stations are not evenly distributed across North America and some stations may not have data for all the source years listed. See the International Journal of Climatology article: Very High Resolution Interpolated Climate Surfaces for Global Land Areas (http://www.worldclim.org/worldclim_IJC.pdf) for information on interpolation methods and quality control in the source data.
No tests for logical consistency have been performed on this map layer.
The North America climate data were derived from WorldClim (http://www.worldclim.org/), a set of global climate layers developed by the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, in collaboration with The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/Paginas/index.aspx) and Rainforest CRC (http://www.jcu.edu.au/rainforest/) with support from NatureServe (http://www.natureserve.org/). The global climate data layers were generated through interpolation of average monthly climate data from weather stations across North America. The result is a 30-arc-second-resolution (1-Km) grid of mean temperature values. The North American data were clipped from the global data and reprojected to a Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection. The Total Annual Precipitation data set is a raster file showing precipitation means derived from monthly precipitation readings. The source data covers the years 1950-2000; individual weather stations used to supply the source data may not have data available for all the years.
The monthly precipitation data files were downloaded from WorldClim and clipped using the North American coastline. The resulting files contain data for Canada, Mexico, and the USA only; all the water pixels were given a value of NoData. The data were converted to GRID format and reprojected to the standard Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection used for the North American Environmental Atlas.
Very High Resolution Interpolated Climate Surfaces For Global Land Areas
North American Coastline
Annual precipitation GRID image grid cell.
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Internal feature number.
Esri
Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated.
Monthly precipitation value for the grid cell, in millimeters.
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Number of pixels by monthly precipitation value.
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
None. Acknowledgment of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation would be appreciated in products derived from these data. All data for Canada and other areas outside of Mexico and the United States of America are covered by the Geogratis License Agreement for Unrestricted Use of Digital Data; see http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/en/licence.jsp.
This material is licensed under CC BY 4.0, allowing non-exclusive rights to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, including for commercial purposes, so long as attribution is given to the creator.