Topic 3.1. Introduction to Climate Data and Climate Models

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Content

Topic Introduction

In this topic, we will introduce scale-free climate models ClimateNA (for North America) and ClimateAP (for the Asia Pacific).  The scale-free feature of these models allows users to generate climate data for specific locations, instead of grid averages from other climate data sources, thus has clear advantages in terms of prediction accuracy and ecological applications at regional and local scales. We will introduce the data sources, downscaling mechanism and the development of a large number of biologically relevant climate variables, summarize the features of the climate models.

By the end of the lecture, you should be able to

  • Distinguish the data sources for baseline, paleo, historical and future periods;
  • Describe the mechanism of the dynamic local downscaling to generate scale-free climate data;
  • Recognize the advantages of scale-free climate data over commonly used gridded climate data;
  • List the options for obtaining scale-free climate data for different applications.

FODE010