Construction of high resolution monthly temperature scenarios for North America

This presentation provides a framework in which dynamical and statistical downscaling methods are combined to construct monthly temperature scenarios over North America at 45x45 km resolution. Monthly temperatures from outputs of three GCMs are dynamically downscaled by three regional climate models (RCMs) participating the North America Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. The dynamically downscaled high resolution temperature and low resolution GCM outputs for the periods 1968-2000 and 2038-2070 are then used to establish statistical models to link small scale and large scale temperatures. These statistical models are then applied to GCM projected future temperature changes available from the CMIP3 database, to construct high resolution monthly temperature scenarios for North America. Uncertainties due to difference in GCMs, in emission scenarios, and internal variability are analyzed. The end product provides projected monthly temperature changes in the future at 45 km resolution with different uncertainty ranges.