Climate Scenario Development and Applications for Local/Regional Climate Change Impact Assessments: An Overview for the Non-Climate Scientist

Although downscaling methods for deriving local/regional climate change scenarios have been extensively studied, little guidance exists on how to use the downscaled scenarios in applications such as impact assessments. In this second part of a two-part communication, we review for non-climate scientists a number of practical considerations when utilizing climate change scenarios. The issues discussed are drawn from questions frequently asked by our colleagues on assessment teams and include sources of observational data for scenario evaluation, the advantages of scenario ensembles, adjusting for scenario biases, and the availability of archived downscaled scenarios. Together with Part I, which reviews various downscaling methods, Part II is intended to improve the communication between suppliers and users of local/regional climate change scenarios, with the overall goal of improving the utility of climate impact assessments through a better understanding by all assessment team members of the strengths and limitations of local/regional climate change scenarios.