DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14937418
title: ICARIA: dynamically downscaled climate projections using two regional climate models

description: ICARIA project had as one of its main purposes to develop coherent, reliable and usable downscaled climate projections from the last CMIP6 in order to construct the basis for efficient support to climate adaptation and decision-making of the related stakeholders, supporting the adaptation of critical assets within the project. These projections were obtained with also the purpose to be freely available for further use in subsequent studies and, hence, foster adaptation to climate change in more areas. Therefore, ICARIA’s climate information is already based on CMIP6 models and incorporating in its workflow the current SSPs. The presented high-resolution future climate projections display a unique dataset. These models will provide the scenarios to be considered within the Risk Assessment and the design and development of all adaptation measures coming as ICARIA outcomes.

Please note that the provided data displays an example of the 2m temperature and precipitation fields for interested people to investigate the models domain. Overall, hourly output of main model parameters (see table below) are available upon request!

For further details, find here a brief of the methodology followed:     

For the dynamically downscaled climate projections, two Regional Climate Models for the scenarios SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5 were used and respectively initialised with the outputs of two CMIP6 GCMs. The COSMO-CLM (CCLM) was selected to downscale the EC-EARTH3-Veg global model while the Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) model was considered to downscale the MPI-ESM1-2-HR global model. The domains considered for the dynamical downscaling are Austria and South Aegean Region for WRF and Salzburg and South Aegean Region for CCLM. The differences in the domain set-up stems from the fact that the WRF simulations are carried out with a 5 km x 5 km spatial resolution, whereas CCLM with a resolution of 2km x 2km which relates to longer simulation times and therefore constrains the size of the domain. All simulations have hourly output and are performed until 2100.
description: Data type: gridded

spatial resolution:

CLM: Salzburg & South Aegean region: 2 x 2 km

WRF: Austria & South Aegean region: 5 x 5 km

example of available model parameters:






Name



Units



Description







10m Wind Speed






m s-1






The magnitude of the two-dimensional horizontal air velocity. The data represents the mean over the aggregation period at 10m above the surface.








10m u-component of the wind






m s-1






The magnitude of the eastward component of the wind at 10m above the surface.








10m v-component of the wind






m s-1






The magnitude of the northward component of the wind at 10m above the surface.








2m relative humidity






%






Relative humidity is the percentage ratio of the water vapour mass to the water vapour mass at the saturation point given the temperature at that location. The data represents the mean over the aggregation period at 2m above the surface.








2m specific humidity






Dimensionless






Amount of moisture in the air at 2m above the surface divided by the amount of air plus moisture at that location.








2m temperature






K






Ambient air temperature. The data represents the mean over the aggregation period at to 2m above the surface.








500hPa geopotential height






m






Gravitational potential energy per unit mass normalised by the standard gravity at 500hPa at the same latitude.








850hPa U-component of the wind






m s-1






Magnitude of the eastward component of the two-dimensional horizontal air velocity at 850hPa.








850hPa V-component of the wind






m s-1






Magnitude of the northward component of the two-dimensional horizontal air velocity at 850hPa.








Mean sea level pressure






Pa






The air pressure at sea level. In regions where the Earth s surface is above sea level the surface pressure is used to compute the air pressure that would exist at sea level directly below given a constant air temperature from the surface to the sea level point. The data represents the mean over the aggregation period.








Maximum 2m temperature in the last 24 hours






K






Maximum temperature of the air near the surface. The data represents the daily maximum at 2m above the surface.
description: Available Indicators are:




TR
Tropical nights


EQ
Equatorial nights


IN
Infernal nights


FD
Frost days


Max consec
Max spell length for above thermal indicators


TXm
Mean maximum temperatures


TNm
Mean minimum temperatures


TM


Mean temperatures



R50, R100
Days with extreme heavy rain


Rx1/Rx5
maximum rainfall intensity over 1/5 days


Ra
Yearly and seasonal rainfall relative change


CDDx
Maximum dry spell duration