JSC/CLIVAR Working Group on Coupled Modelling

Regional Climate Modelling

Using regional data from climate models

The increased confidence in attribution of global scale climate change to human induced greenhouse emissions, and the expectation that such changes will increase in future, has lead to an increased demand in predictions of regional climate change to guide adaptation. Although there is some confidence in the large scale patterns of changes in some parameters, the skill in regional prediction is much more limited and indeed difficult to assess, given that we do not have data for a selection of different climates against which to test models. Much research is being done to improve model predictions, but progress is likely to be slow. In the meantime, WCRP recognises that governments and business are faced with making decisions now, and require the best available climate advice today. Despite their limitations, climate models provide the most promising means of providing information on climate change, and WCRP has encouraged making data available from climate predictions to guide decisions, provided the limitations of such predictions are made clear. This will include assessments of the ability of the models used to predict current climate, and the range of predictions from as large a number of different models as possible.

IPCC TGICA Guidelines on Regionalisation

These documents are part of the IPCC "Supporting Material" of the IPCC Data Distribution Centre (DDC) and have been prepared at the request of the Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impacts and Climate Analysis (TGICA). Note that these documents have not been subject to the formal intergovernmental IPCC review process. Please follow this link for these and other documents providing technical guidance or summarising information held on the IPCC DDC.

General Guidelines on the use of Scenario Data for Climate Impact and Adaptation Assessment (2007)

Guidelines for Use of Climate Scenarios Developed from Statistical Downscaling Methods (2004)

Guidelines for Use of Climate Scenarios Developed from Regional Climate Model Experiments (2003)

last updated Fri, Apr 25, 2008 by Anna Pirani