Data Construction

Over 85% of the climate products distributed are national-level products that were developed by or an outcome of research at the University of Montana. The University of Montana is currently conducting research that over the next three years will further increase this proportion.  It is important to recognize the significant role of federal partners (USGS, NOAA, NASA, and USDA) in providing support for and being a resource for the development, maintenance, and distribution of source climate datasets.

The climate dataset holdings of the Montana Climate Office currently encompass approximately 400,000 individual statewide rasters (up from the 2014 estimate of 150,000) totaling about 3 TB of storage. The MCO holdings also include approximately 23 million records of climate station data which is updated approximately every three days.

This data is aggregated from many subject matter experts and made discoverable via the Climate website and the Montana GIS Data List. The Theme Lead also works directly with data consumers to help them adapt climate products to their needs. Currently, there is one Theme Lead.  The Theme Lead receives technical support and oversight from two research staff and two faculty researchers who specialize in ecological climatology and landscape hydrology.