CHESS-SCAPE climate projections for the UK at 1km resolution 1980-2080

Climate, Hydrology and Ecology research Support System - Status, Change and Projections of the Environment (CHESS-SCAPE) is a 1 km resolution climate data set, which is derived from the UKCP18 12 km Regional Climate Model (RCM) ensemble. CHESS-SCAPE consists of four ensemble members, each of which is provided with and without bias correction for four climate change scenarios (RCP2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5). It provides eleven meteorological variables (daily mean air temperature, daily minimum air temperature, daily maximum air temperature, daily temperature range, precipitation, specific humidity, relative humidity, air pressure, wind speed, downward longwave radiation and downward shortwave radiation). These are available at daily, monthly, seasonal and annual timesteps, along with twenty-year mean-monthly climatologies calculated every ten years. The data are derived by downscaling four members of the UKCP18 12 km RCM ensemble, accounting for local topography. The bias correction is applied using the 1 km resolution CHESS-met historical data set (1981-2015) as a baseline. RCPs 2.6, 4.5 and 6.0 are derived by applying time-shifting and pattern scaling to the RCP8.5 data. The CHESS-SCAPE data are available as CF-compliant netCDF files.

This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council award number NE/R016429/1 as part of the UK-SCAPE programme delivering National Capability.