When publishing research based on NARCCAP data, please include a citation for the dataset itself, such as the following:

Mearns, L.O., et al., 2007, updated 2014. The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program dataset, National Center for Atmospheric Research Earth System Grid data portal, Boulder, CO. Data downloaded 2024-04-20. [doi:10.5065/D6RN35ST]

The fundamental paper about NARCCAP to cite is:

Mearns, L. O., W. J. Gutowski, R. Jones, L.-Y. Leung, S. McGinnis, A. M. B. Nunes, and Y. Qian. "A regional climate change assessment program for North America." EOS, Vol. 90, No. 36, 8 September 2009, pp. 311-312. [doi:10.1029/2009EO360002]

For acknowledgments, see the Acknowledgements page.

Explanation of Citation Structure

Dataset citation is a relatively new idea and standards are still emerging, but a common approach is to structure the citation analogously to that of a book, with a couple website citation elements added on. The following form is adapted from the AMS citation form for books and websites, and covers the most commonly included elements in a dataset citation:

Authors, publication year. Dataset Title, Data Center. Download date. [Access path (URL or DOI)]

Authors: These are the people who generated the data. For NARCCAP, this is the list of everyone involved in running the climate models, post-processing the model output into the standard NARCCAP format, and quality-controlling and distributing the results. The full list of authors is as follows:

If a citation format requires a full list of authors in lieu of an et al listing, please use this ordering:

Mearns, Linda; McGinnis, Seth; Arritt, Raymond; Biner, Sebastien; Duffy, Phillip; Gutowski, William; Held, Isaac; Jones, Richard; Leung, Ruby; Nunes, Ana; Snyder, Mark; Caya, Daniel; Correia, James; Flory, David; Herzmann, Daryl; Laprise, René; Moufouma-Okia, Wilfran; Takle, Gene; Teng, Haiyan; Thompson, Josh; Tucker, Simon; Wyman, Bruce; Anitha, Anila; Buja, Lawrence; Macintosh, Christopher; McDaniel, Larry; O'Brien, Travis; Qian, Yun; Sloan, Lisa; Strand, Gary; Zoellick, Casey

Publication Year: When a dataset is not published at a single instant in time, list the publication date as the year of initial publication, followed by "updated" with the year of the most recent update. NARCCAP data was first published in 2007.

Title: This is the identifying name of the dataset at a whole. NARCCAP's official name is "The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program dataset".

Data Center: The data center is the distributor of the data, and is analogous to the publisher of a printed work. NARCCAP data is distributed via NCAR's Earth System Grid data portal.

Download Date: It is good practice for citations of electronic resources to note the date of access, in case the resource changes at some point in the future.

Access Path: The most useful component of a citation for an electronic resource is a followable reference to the location. A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a persistent pointer to a resource that should remain valid even when the data moves. We do not yet have a DOI for NARCCAP, but are working on obtaining one. Until then, the URL for the top-level access page on the Earth System Grid is a reasonable substitute.

Please also see the Acknowledgements page for information on how to properly acknowledge NARCCAP in research publications using this data.