NSW and ACT Regional Climate Model (NARCliM) project dataset

Full description

This collection comprises post-processed output of Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations performed for the New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory Regional Climate Model (NARCliM) project. These simulations, which use the WRF RCM, are currently in progress. The NARCliM simulations cover two different domains at different spatial resolutions:

• Australian region domain resolved at ~50km resolution

• Southeast Australia domain resolved at ~10km resolution

 
For each of the two domains, three WRF configurations (essentially three different RCMs) are being used to downscale low resolution Global Climate Model (GCM) simulations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's SRES A2 scenario for future emissions of greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols. The three WRF configurations have been selected from a greater number that have been evaluated over southeast Australia. Output from simulations of three 20-year periods, representing recent, early 21st century and late 21st century climate conditions, forced with output from the MIROC3.2(medres) GCM (run 1) is expected to exist for the three WRF configurations in October 2012. Output of equivalent simulations for the ECHAM5/MPI-OM (run 1), CGCM3.1(T74) (run 4) and CSIRO-MK3.5 (run 1) GCMs will become available progressively after that. The four forcing GCMs were selected on the basis of ability to simulate observed climate conditions, sampling of the uncertainty in future climate changes for southeastern Australia and statistical independence. Simulations of a 60-year historical period are also being performed using the three WRF configurations driven by the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis to allow evaluation of the RCM performance.