Development of Long-Term Blended Monthly Precipitation Dataset (CanBPv1) for Canada Using a Regime-Dependent Blending Algorithm

Precipitation is a key variable for specifying the state of the climate system. Canada has in situ observations of precipitation over the past 50 years or longer, with higher density of stations in the region south of 60N latitude and large geographical gaps in the north (stations are typically 500-700 km apart). There is a need to generate a high quality gridded precipitation database for Canada, for global/regional climate models validation, climate monitoring, climate change and impacts assessment, etc.. Since precipitation is highly variable spatially and Canada has large geographical gaps of in situ precipitation measurements in the north, making it difficult to generate a realistic gridded precipitation data set using only the station precipitation data. However, satellite precipitation data are available from the early 1980s; they are basically homogeneous in time and have a good spatial coverage despite of some possible systematic biases. Research and development is required to integrate the station data with the satellite precipitation estimates, using the spatial patterns of precipitation derived from satellite observations to obtain spatial interpolation of precipitation for the geographical gaps in the in-situ observations. This should be a more realistic way to generate a gridded precipitation database. Lin and Wang (2011) has developed an algorithm for blending multiple satellite precipitation estimates with in-situ gauge measurements in Canada, producing the CanBPv0 gridded monthly precipitation dataset (see Lin, A. and X. L. Wang, 2011: An algorithm for blending multiple satellite precipitation estimates with in-situ precipitation measurements in Canada. J. Geophys. Res., 116, D21111, doi:10.1029/2011JD016359). 

PERIOD OF CONTRACT:
The contract will commence on the “Date of Award” to August 18, 2016 with the option to renew for three (3) one year periods.

•	Initial Contract Period:  “Date of Award” to August 18, 2016
•	Option Year 1:		   August 19, 2016 to August 18, 2017
•	Option Year 2:  	   August 19, 2017 to August 18, 2018
•	Option Year 2:  	   August 19, 2018 to August 18, 2019

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.