Extreme Temperature Projections Using Updated Climate Model Data from LOCA2

Extreme Temperature Projections Using Updated Climate Model Data from LOCA2

This tool is excerpted from Mid-Atlantic Regional Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook: Summer 2024.

Tool Background

The Spring 2024 edition of the Mid-Atlantic Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook provided an initial visualization of the latest downscaled climate projections that are available for the Mid-Atlantic region, specifically what these projections show in terms of extreme precipitation. This Summer 2024 edition builds on this by visualizing the latest model results for temperature.

"As described in the Winter 2023-2024 Climate Summary, the most recent scientific update to global climate model projections of future climate change – the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) – are now available for researchers and practitioners as downscaled projections for the United States. This dataset, Localized Constructed Analogues 2 (LOCA2), provides higher spatial resolution (~3.7 square miles) projections of future temperature and precipitation than the global CMIP6 models which have spatial resolutions on the order of tens to hundreds of square miles.1 LOCA and LOCA2 use similar downscaling methods, but LOCA2 was designed with the intention to do a better job of preserving any extremes in daily precipitation from the global climate models.2 A detailed comparison of how LOCA2 is different from LOCA is provided on the LOCA website. For a more complete discussion about and introduction to climate projections and future climate scenarios, check out Part 4 of the Winter 2023-2024 Climate Summary."3

This is our second climate summary that incorporates LOCA2 models.

"In future climate summaries, we will do a more detailed comparison between LOCA and LOCA2, but for now this summary is intended to provide an initial look at these new downscaled climate models."4

In this section, we present an analysis of future projected days with extreme temperatures, or days with temperatures above 90, 95, or 100 degrees F.

Key Findings

  • The Mid-Atlantic region could see nearly a 190 percent increase (from 16.5 days to 47.7 days) in the average number of days with temperatures greater than 90 degrees F by mid-century and over a 300 percent increase (from 16.5 days to 68.1 days) by the end of the century under a high future climate scenario (SSP3-7.0).
  • The southern and eastern portions of the region and locations at lower elevations will see greater future instances of days with temperatures above 90 degrees F. For example, areas southeast of Richmond, Virginia are projected to experience over 120 days per year that reach at least 90 degrees F by 2100 under the high future climate scenario. Those areas saw an average of about 50 days above 90 in the baseline time period (1991-2020).

Figure 1. CMIP6 Extreme Temperature Projections

How to Use the Tool

Selecting Temperature Thresholds and Time Periods Use the filters to the right of the maps to adjust the temperature threshold, future time period, and climate scenario.

Technical Notes

Localized Constructed Analogs 2 (LOCA2) is a downscaled climate data product available at 6 km resolution over the continental United States.5 The LOCA2 dataset includes 27 of the climate models available in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) archive, for three future climate scenarios: an intermediate-emissions future (Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) 2-4.5), a high-emissions future (SSP 3-7.0) and a very high-emissions future (SSP 5-8.5). 6 For this tool, we used LOCA2 data over the Mid-Atlantic region from 2021-2100 (or 2099 for some models). Access LOCA2 datasets and learn more about the methodology.

Footnotes

  1. Soares, P. M. M., Johannsen, F., Lima, D. C. A., Lemos, G., Bento, V. A., and Bushenkova, A.: High-resolution downscaling of CMIP6 Earth system and global climate models using deep learning for Iberia, Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 229–259, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-229-2024, 2024. Return to text ⤴

  2. https://loca.ucsd.edu/loca-version-1-vs-loca-version-2/ Return to text ⤴

  3. Miro, Michelle E., Krista Romita Grocholski, Samantha Borisoff, Lena Easton-Calabria, Jessica Spaccio, and Arthur T. DeGaetano, Mid-Atlantic Regional Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook: Spring 2024. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2024. https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TLA386-19.html. Return to text ⤴

  4. Miro, Michelle E., Krista Romita Grocholski, Samantha Borisoff, Lena Easton-Calabria, Jessica Spaccio, and Arthur T. DeGaetano, Mid-Atlantic Regional Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook: Spring 2024. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2024. https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TLA386-19.html. Return to text ⤴

  5. https://www.midatlanticrisa.org/climate-summaries/2024/03.html#part-4-a-primer-on-climate-pro- Return to text ⤴

  6. https://www.midatlanticrisa.org/climate-summaries/2024/03.html#part-4-a-primer-on-climate-pro- Return to text ⤴

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