Derived future meteorological datasets projected to 2016-2045 and 2036-2065 in Australian capital cities using CMIP5 models

Derived projected datasets for the eight Australian capital cities in 2016-2045 and 2036-2065, centred around 2030 and 2050, respectively. Projects used eight general circulation models (GCMs) under Representative Concentration Pathway [RCP]2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5. The scenarios were under Coupled Model Intercomparison Project [CMIP]5. The eight GCM models are ACCESS1-0, CESM1-CAM5, CNRM-CM5, CanESM2, GFDL-ESM2M, HadGEM2-CC, MIROC5 and NorESM1-M, and are described online: https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/obtain-data/application-ready-data/eight-climate-models-data/. Only data from five GCMs are available for RCP2.6 and four for RCP6.0.

For each city, seven*seven 5 km grids were extracted at grid centroids correlating to the centre of its central business district. These coordinates are in the file "City coordinate." The corresponding datasets for each city, RCP, GCM, time period, and meteorological variable are located in their respective city folder in the folder "future." The meteorological variables are relative humidity ("hurs"), solar radiation ("rsds"), average air temperature ("tas"), maximum air temperature "(tasmax") and minimum air temperature ("tasmin"). These were used to create derived .csv files also stored in the "future" folder, which in turn were used to create derived R datasets ("ccia_future.rda" and "ccia_future2.rda") combining all the datasets into one and creating additional meteorological indices using the available data. The R code used to create these datasets is included "CCiA data manipulation.R". It uses functions stored in the R code file "Climate functions.R". The additional meteorological indices include alternate humidity variables, apparent temperature variables and the Excess Heat Factor (EHF). The heatwave thresholds values used to calculate EHF (the 95th percentile of daily mean temperature from a reference period) per city are included in "barra_ehfr.R" and were calculated from a separate dataset (not included) derived from the Bureau of Meteorology Atmospheric high-resolution Regional Reanalysis (BARRA).

The original projected climate datasets were sourced from Climate Change in Australia (CCiA), published by the Commonwealth Science Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The original datasets are available online: https://data-cbr.csiro.au/thredds/catalog/catch_all/oa-aus5km/Climate_Change_in_Australia_User_Data/Application_Ready_Data_Gridded_Daily/catalog.html. The license under which the data were used is available online: https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/overview/about-site/licences-and-acknowledgements/.

I acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and thank the climate modelling groups (listed at https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/obtain-data/application-ready-data/eight-climate-models-data/) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.

Further information regarding these datasets and meteorological variables is listed in the author's PhD thesis, available online: https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/handle/2440/137773. For any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the author: matthew.borg@adelaide.edu.au.