Future Climate: Projected Average

201357 citationsBook Chapter

Authors

Daniel R. Cayan · United States Geological Survey

Mary Tyree · University of California, San Diego

Kenneth E. Kunkel · Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites

C. L. Castro · University of Arizona

Alexander Gershunov · Scripps Institution of Oceanography

J. J. Barsugli · Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Andrea J. Ray

Abstract

Global climate models (GCMs) are the fundamental drivers of regional climate-change projections (IPCC 2007). GCMs allow us to characterize changes in atmospheric circulation associated with human causes at global and continental scales. However, because of the planetary scope of the GCMs, their resolution, or level of detail, is somewhat coarse. A typical GCM grid spacing is about 62 miles (100 km) or greater, which is inadequate for creating projections and evaluating impacts of climate change at a regional scale. Thus, a “downscaling” procedure is needed to provide finer spatial detail of the model results.

Topics & Keywords

Climate variability and models Hydrology and Drought Analysis Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Climate action

Publication Details

Published in: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics eBooks

DOI: 10.5822/978-1-61091-484-0_6

Field-Weighted Citation Impact: 10.04