Interested in viewing 3-D visualizations showing how climate change projections for the 2030s and 2050s will affect selected landscapes? Well, USAID, NASA, the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology, the University of Colorado and CATHALAC (Centro del Agua del Trópico Húmedo para América Latina y el Caribe) have just the thing for you. The development partners on May 2 announced the beta release of the Climate Mapper tool for SERVIR Viz, the Regional Visualization and Monitoring System.
Climate Mapper should “enhance vulnerability assessments as development planners consider adaptation strategies for projects,” according to the group’s press release.
Modeled data is based on monthly data averaged over the decades 2031-2040 and 2051-2060. Three models output data based on the models used in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report: the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate System Model; the European Centre/Hamburg Model (ECHAM); and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Coupled Model.
These three models “were chosen because they represent the highest, middle, and lowest projections for changes in Africa in the Climate Moisture Index (CMI), a measure of the relative balance of precipitation and temperature and run using the A1B SRES scenario, a scenario of economic activity and carbon emissions that most closely represents the current or business-as-usual economic and carbon emissions trajectory,” according to the group’s press release.
In addition, the software renders historical temperature and precipitation for the 1961-1990 base period taken from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit database of monthly climate observations from meteorological stations interpolated 0.5° grid covering the earth’s land surface.
Initial complementary Climate Mapper data sets are available for Africa for ½-degree x ½ degree grid cells, which cover approximately an area of 50 square kilometers near the equator. Future data set releases are expected to cover the entire planet.
Both the Climate Mapper and SERVIR Viz can be downloaded here.
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