Performance of Different Climate Data Sources in Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Distress Analyses

Abstract

AASHTO places a strong emphasis on the influence of climate conditions on the prediction of pavement performance. This paper compares asphalt concrete and jointed plain concrete pavements using three different climate data sources: (1) a weather station database provided by AASHTO; (2) ground-based weather station (GBWS) data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); and (3) earth observation data from the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA). Analyses are conducted for the weather stations located in South Dakota. The results indicate that the AASHTO predictions calculated with all data sources are comparable. However, results also indicate that the use of the NASA data has many advantages over the weather station database and AASHTO weather data, such as: (1) greater and more-consistent spatial coverage (i.e., no spatial gaps); (2) longer periods of continuous climate data (i.e., no temporal gaps); and (3) higher-quality (lower-error) data.