Type TFF
The Mean Annual Temperature data set is a raster file showing values derived from mean monthly temperature 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 the standard Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection used for the North American Environmental Atlas.
The Mean Annual Temperature data set is a raster file showing values derived from mean monthly temperature 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 - Annual Temperature, 1950-2000 (Mean Temperature)”. 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 |
Contact Person: John Hutchinson
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 - Annual Temperature, 1950-2000 (Mean Temperature)”. 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, 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 the standard Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection used for the North American Environmental Atlas. The Mean Annual Temperature data set is a raster file showing values derived from mean monthly temperature 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.
The Mean Annual Temperature data set was reprojected to the standard Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection used for the North American Environmental Atlas, and was masked with the same land/water mask applied to other raster products in the North American Atlas. This step was necessary because climate data are compiled with different spatial extent and parameters than the coastline base in the North American Atlas. The goal of masking is to ensure that the land/water boundary in the climate data set matches the coastline base in the North American Atlas. Masking was a 4-step process, implemented with ArcGIS tools in a Python script. Inputs to the process were the Mean Annual Temperature data set, as a 16-bit integer image, and the mask, a 0/1 image with 0 = water and 1 = land. Step 1: the input image was multiplied by the 0/1 mask. Step 2: an image was created from the output of Step 1, with values set to NoData for all pixels in the input image that were originally water but needed to be changed to land to match the coastline base. Step 3: the outputs of Steps 1 and 2 were input to the ArcGIS Nibble command to create the final output image. Nibble is a majority filter that replaces pixels in the input image with whatever pixel value represents the majority of surrounding pixels; the function was constrained to act only on pixels identified as NoData in the input mask. No valid, existing data values were changed; only input water pixels were changed to values representing a majority of neighboring values, and only for pixels identified as land in the North American Atlas. Step 4: final output images were converted to GeoTIFF. Details on the masking process, including the Python script, are available on request.
The pixels identified as water in the first process step had values of 0. Since this value could be interpreted as a temperature value, the water pixels needed to be changed to have a value of NoData. The North American coastline was used to clip the data and thereby set all the water pixels to NoData; the resulting file contain data for Canada, Mexico, and the USA only. The file was output in GRID format.
Very High Resolution Interpolated Climate Surfaces For Global Land Areas
2007 Land/water Mask
Contact Person: John Hutchinson
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.
Mean annual temperature value for the grid cell, expressed as degrees Celsius * 10.
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Number of pixels by annual 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.