ICHEC Updates the Regional Climate Projection Dataset for Ireland with Recently Completed Downscaled CMIP6 Simulations
ICHEC has updated the regional climate projection dataset for Ireland with recently completed downscaled CMIP6 simulations. An overview is available here.
The research is funded and supported by the EPA, Met Éireann and the Marine Institute.
Dr Paul Nolan, Climate Scientist, ICHEC, said,
The global climate projections comprise Ireland’s contribution to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) and are currently being analysed for inclusion in the IPCC AR6 reports. In addition, the datasets are currently being analysed by the international research community and will feature in many future studies on the environmental, social and economic impacts of climate change.
The national climate modelling research will update, and improve, the current regional climate projection dataset for Ireland. This is being achieved by running an ensemble of high-resolution downscaled simulations using the most up-to-date Regional Climate Models (both standard and coupled atmosphere-ocean-wave), CMIP6 Global Climate Models and all four “tier-1” SSP emission scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 & SSP5-8.5) for the period 1980-2100. This research, and the resulting regional projections, will continue to inform national climate change policy such as the various governmental sectoral adaptation plans.
It is important to note that the updated national climate projections are preliminary and will be revised as additional regional climate simulations complete. Nevertheless, it was found that for most fields analysed to-date, the updated regional projections are similar to the downscaled CMIP5 climate projection dataset for Ireland . This agreement adds a measure of confidence to the projections.
When additional downscaled CMIP6 simulations complete over the coming months, we will undertake a comprehensive comparison of the downscaled CMIP6/SSP and CMIP5/RCP projections.
The project team will produce projections of climate fields and derived variables that are of importance to sectors including agriculture, health, energy, biodiversity and transport. We welcome suggestions from domain experts and policy makers on making available additional fields that are useful for their specific areas of research. Please contact us and we will strive to produce projections of the requested climate fields.
