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Click here to see members of CSAG presenting at the International Conference on Regional Climate – CORDEX 2013

There is an increasing need for detailed, high-resolution regional information regarding future climate. Information at this regional scale is needed by scientists in disciplines that require climate information (e.g. hydrologists), as well as decision- and policy-makers, and by those assessing climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Although climate change projections must necessarily be undertaken with global models, such models do not have sufficient spatial detail for all applications.

Constraints on available computing resources will always limit model resolution; therefore, various techniques have been developed for ‘downscaling’ global climate projections (and shorter-term climate predictions) and for producing fine-scale regional climate information. These include nested regional climate models, variable resolution global models, global uniform high-resolution time-slice simulations, statistical downscaling, and/or combinations of these methods.

To this end, the CO-ordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) was initiated. The task of this WCRP-sponsored programme is to organize an internationally coordinated framework to produce an improved generation of regional climate change projection information world-wide for input into impact and adaptation studies within the AR5 timeline and beyond. The major goals of the CORDEX programme are as follows :

  1. Provide a quality-controlled data set of regional scale climate information for the recent historical past and 21st century projections covering the majority of populated land regions on the globe. This information will be generated using both dynamical and statistical downscaling methods to regionalise the output from a number of Global Climate Models (GCM) under varying greenhouse gas concentration scenarios. The CORDEX downscaling activities will be based on the latest set of GCM climate scenarios and predictions produced within the 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and will downscale 150 years of GCM data from 1951-2100.
  2.  Define a common set of regions/domains for downscaling and define a standard set of variables, frequency and format for output and archival at a number of CORDEX data centres.
  3. Coordinate a range of regional climate model simulations for the defined domains, forced by analyses of observations (currently the ERA-Interim reanalysis data) to provide a benchmark framework for model evaluation and assessment.
  4. Encourage and coordinate the development of Regional Analysis and Evaluation Teams to; (i) Evaluate the ensemble of downscaling, (ii) develop a suitable set of regionally-specific metrics for evaluation, (iii) collect suitable observational data to evaluate high-resolution downscaling and (iv) design experiments to investigate the added-value of regional climate downscaling and target future priorities in this research.
  5. Provide support and information to climate impact assessment and adaptation groups interested in utilizing CORDEX RCD material in their research.

Data produced by downscaling centres is divided into 3 tiers: Core Tier data, relevant to all communities such as monthly and seasonal means; Tier One data, relevant to most communities such as daily surface/selected upper air data; Tier Two data, higher frequency and more complete atmospheric/surface variables, relevant largely to research institutes. The data follows strict formatting criteria before it is accepted for archiving at the Danish Meteorological Institute who are using Earth System Grid software for this purpose. The DMI will likely also host the Core Tier data in addition to the ESG if they have space for this. Tier Two data will be hosted at respective downscaling centres and will be provided  on a more informal basis. Additionally, it is envisioned that regional centres would make value-added data available online e.g. the Climate Information Platform at the Climate Systems Analysis Group.

 

CORDEX

 

Africa was identified in the IPCC 4thassessment report as the continent most vulnerable to global warming and also evident in the assessment was the relative dearth of regional climate information historically as well as into the future. Thus, although all terrestrial regions of the globe form part of the experiment (see Figure above), the African region has been prioritised and all downscaling groups have been asked to downscale the African domain in addition to their own region’s domains. Leading into the IPCC AR5 process, CORDEX will be a leading contributor of African regional climate change information, which is essential for supporting adaptation actions and the development of national and international policy responses.

Set against this, however, is the recognition of a critical shortage in Africa of scientific capacity to engage with the complexities of the necessary research for generating relevant and context specific knowledge from the downscaled data. To address this, an initiative has been developed that uses CORDEX data as the basis for capacity development within African whilst expanding the vulnerability knowledge base of many regions within the continent to a warming climate. The CORDEX Africa Analysis campaign, developed by the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town and START, brings together African climate scientists as well as African vulnerability, impacts and adaptation (VIA) scientists to not only interrogate the raw downscaled data for information on how climate process over the continent may change but also to assess how these changes may impact various sectors (e.g health, agriculture, water security) in multiple regions across the continent. A series of workshop have been planned which are designed to, through the analysis of CORDEX data, develop and train African climate scientists with a long-term, career development view; analyse past and future projections of the African climate and investigate these changes within a vulnerability-impact-adaptation context. The inaugural workshop was held in March 2011, the second follow-up meeting, in November 2011 and a third in February 2012 during which papers to be included in the IPCC 5th assessment report were written.

Further information about the CORDEX programme can be found at the websites below. For any information regarding the CORDEX Africa Analysis campaign please email lennard@csag.uct.ac.za.

The official WCRP CORDEX page: http://wcrp.ipsl.jussieu.fr/SF_RCD_CORDEX.html

University of Cantabria, Spain: http://www.meteo.unican.es/en/projects/CORDEX

 

 

CORDEX 2

 

 

 

 

 

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