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Climate adaptation should be based on robust regional climate information

25 Jul 2021 by rasmus

Climate adaptation steams forward with an accelerated speed that can be seen through the Climate Adaptation Summit in January (see previous post), the ECCA 2021 in May/June, and the upcoming COP26. Recent extreme events may spur this development even further (see previous post about attribution of recent heatwaves). 

To aid climate adaptation, Europe’s Climate-Adapt programme provides a wealth of resources, such as guidance, case studies and videos. This is a good start, but a clear and transparent account on how to use the actual climate information for adaptation seems to be missing. How can projections of future heatwaves or extreme rainfall help practitioners, and how to interpret this kind of information? 

[Read more…] about Climate adaptation should be based on robust regional climate information

Filed Under: Climate impacts, Climate modelling, Climate Science, climate services, downscaling, heatwaves, hydrological cycle, Solutions, statistics

Regional information for society (RifS) and unresolved issues

14 Feb 2021 by rasmus

It’s encouraging to note the growing interest for regional climate information for society and climate adaptation, such as recent advances in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the climate adaptation summit CAS2021, and the new Digital Europe. These efforts are likely to boost the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) needed as a guide to decision-makers on matters influenced by weather and climate. 

[Read more…] about Regional information for society (RifS) and unresolved issues

Filed Under: Climate impacts, Climate modelling, Climate Science, climate services, Communicating Climate, downscaling, Solutions

What do you need to know about climate?

14 Jun 2017 by rasmus

What do you need to know about climate in order to be in the best position to adapt to future change? This question was discussed in a European workshop on Copernicus climate services during a heatwave in Barcelona, Spain (June 12-14).

[Read more…] about What do you need to know about climate?

Filed Under: Climate impacts, Climate modelling, Climate Science, Communicating Climate, downscaling, Scientific practice, Solutions

Do regional climate models add value compared to global models?

22 May 2016 by rasmus

2016-05-20 10.08.17

Global climate models (GCM) are designed to simulate earth’s climate over the entire planet, but they have a limitation when it comes to describing local details due to heavy computational demands. There is a nice TED talk by Gavin that explains how climate models work.

We need to apply downscaling to compute the local details. Downscaling may be done through empirical-statistical downscaling (ESD) or regional climate models (RCMs) with a much finer grid. Both take the crude (low-resolution) solution provided by the GCMs and include finer topographical details (boundary conditions) to calculate more detailed information. However, does more details translate to a better representation of the world?

The question of “added value” was an important topic at the International Conference on Regional Climate conference hosted by CORDEX of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). The take-home message was mixed on whether RCMs provide a better description of local climatic conditions than the coarser GCMs.

[Read more…] about Do regional climate models add value compared to global models?

Filed Under: Climate impacts, Climate modelling, Climate Science, downscaling, Reporting on climate, statistics

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