Translational Information
NCPP will fill a gap in the provision of regional and local climate data by developing and providing translational information for those products. New or extended “schemas” or “templates” will be developed and used to create, display, and search translational content. This translational content may include a selection of explanatory, guidance or narrative information related to the provision of regional and local climate data. More specifically, the templates' content could include additional factual information, explanatory text about potential impacts of user choices on output results, guidance related to user choices, narratives/summaries of the results for a respective region of interest. NCPP will review the templates and content in light of the user needs. To respond to users’ requests for regional and local climate information NCPP will provide the necessary translational information alongside data products contributed by partners.
The translational information that we expect to contribute is shown below. It will be divided into factual and guidance material with the differences between these clearly indicated.
| Item | Possible values | Translational information category | Type |
| project | description, contact information, user support information | factual | |
| user | name, organization, interests | factual (private) | |
| region | entire U.S., Alaska, Appalachia, California, Eastern Midwest, Great Lakes, Great Plains Central, etc. | type of map projection, where the map was obtained from, datum | factual |
| index | annual number of days with Tmax > 90degF, > 95degF, > 100degF, anual number of days with Tmin < 32degF, < 10degF, < 0degF, etc. | detailed description and guidance about the index and the method used for its calculation | factual and guidance |
| aggregation | no aggregation (gridpoint), state, regional, county | grid point resolution and guidance on aggregation |
factual and guidance |
| period | 1 year, 20-year, 30-year, etc. | guidance about impacts on final results | factual and guidance |
| observed dataset | Maurer et al. 2002, PRISM, etc. | information about the potential data set, method of development, limitations and guidance on usage |
factual and guidance |
| narrative |
narrative based on results; text and images |
guidance on interpretation of results |
guidance |
