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a=86400 The CORDEX-Australasia ensemble: evaluation and future projections | Climate Dynamics
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The CORDEX-Australasia ensemble: evaluation and future projections

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Abstract

A new regional climate projection ensemble has been created for the Australasia region as part of the World Climate Research Programs Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). The CORDEX-Australasia ensemble is the largest regional climate projection ensemble ever created for the region. It is a 20-member ensemble made by 6 regional climate models downscaling 11 global climate models. Overall the ensemble produces a good representation of recent climate. Consistent biases within the ensemble include an underestimation of the diurnal temperature range and an underestimation of precipitation across much of southern Australia. Under a high emissions scenario projected temperature changes by the end of the twenty-first century reach ~ 5 K in the interior of Australia with smaller increases found toward the coast. Projected precipitation changes are towards drying, particularly in the most populated areas of the southwest and southeast of the continent. The projected precipitation change is very seasonal with summer projected to see little change leaning toward an increase. These results provide a foundation enabling future studies of regional climate changes, climate change impacts, and adaptation options for Australia.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the National Computing Infrastructure (NCI) National Facility at Australian National University and by the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre for compute resources to run the WRF simulations. The CORDEX-CORE REMO simulations were performed under the GERICS/HZG share at the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ). This project is supported through funding from the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Programme and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in Table S2 of this paper) 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. This work was partially funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) under its Research for Development Alliance with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). We thank Jack Katzfey, Marcus Thatcher, and John McGregor at CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere for helpful discussions regarding CCAM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Jason P. Evans, Giovanni Di Virgilio & Annette L. Hirsch

  2. Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Jason P. Evans, Annette L. Hirsch & Fei Ji

  3. Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Hamburg, Germany

    Peter Hoffmann & Armelle Reca Remedio

  4. Climate Science Centre-CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Aspendale, Australia

    Peter Hoffmann

  5. NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Sydney, Australia

    Fei Ji

  6. Institute of Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany

    Burkhardt Rockel

  7. The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics ICTP, Trieste, Italy

    Erika Coppola

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  1. Jason P. Evans
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  2. Giovanni Di Virgilio
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Evans, J.P., Di Virgilio, G., Hirsch, A.L. et al. The CORDEX-Australasia ensemble: evaluation and future projections. Clim Dyn 57, 1385–1401 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05459-0

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