UH Launches New Climate Data Portal

Several University of Hawai‘i agencies and others have teamed up to provide easy public access to climate data and information, creating a powerful new tool that also helps close data gaps.

UH’s Hawai‘i Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or Hawai‘i ESPCoR, ‘Ike Wai project and the Hawaiʻi Data Science Institute partnered with the UH Water Resources Research Center and East-West Center to launch the Hawai‘i Climate Data Portal, an open-source platform that hosts a wide range of data products, climate tools and resources.

“The Hawaiʻi Climate Data Portal provides streamlined access to high-quality reliable data and information that can be utilized by a range of stakeholders and be incorporated into near-real-time planning activities and management decisions,” said East-West Center fellow and ʻIke Wai researcher Ryan Longman, who worked on the development of the portal with a team of about 20 from throughout the UH system and the community, in a press release from the university.

After nearly a decade of development, the new climate data portal launched Thursday, March 3.

According to the press release, knowledge about climate patterns is critically important for a variety of resource management issues, including groundwater and surface water development and protection, controlling and eradicating invasive species, protecting and restoring native ecosystems and planning for the effects of global warming.

Climate data available through the Hawai‘i Climate Data Portal includes:

• More than 100 years of monthly rainfall maps
• Daily temperature maps spanning 30 years
• Climate map visualization and download tools
• Library of related journal publications and reports
• Climate research highlights
• Information about indigenous knowledge and climate perspectives
• Links to decision support tools and resources
• Range of other variables and products updated in near-real-time.

The data portal also will eventually host data from the Hawaiʻi Mesonet project, which will deploy more than 90 climate stations statewide. Other features under development include near-real-time fire risk and early warning, drought forecasting and an avian malaria risk warning tool.

“Improving weather and climate monitoring in Hawai‘i through the Hawai‘i Mesonet and providing easy access to the data and data products through the HCDP will revolutionize Hawai‘i-based research across a broad range of disciplines and provide much needed information to resource managers, emergency response agencies, decision makers and Hawai‘i residents,” said Thomas Giambelluca, UH Water Resources Research Center director and ʻIke Wai project co-investigator, in the release.

Future features are being supported by the Hawai’i Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

More information about the new climate data portal and related UH research can be found online.