Regional Climate Impacts

The Regional Climate Impacts research theme is focused on improving the availability of future projections of climate change and indices of extremes, and facilitating the use of projections in assessing possible impacts and risks of climate change. To accomplish this, we require a comprehensive foundation of climate information and downscaling capability that must be continually improved in step with the evolution of climate modelling and downscaling science. Consequently, the theme has invested significant effort in strengthening and updating this information base. Recent activity in this area includes development and application of the BCCAQ (v2) downscaling method, as well as further high resolution bias-correction with PRISM climatology. Recent activity has focused on co-creation of regional and sectoral impacts assessments in collaboration with users, making use of climate projections for building design, and assisting with reducing barriers to climate adaptation through user education and practice.

Research objectives

• Downscaling: create statistically downscaled results over the Pacific Yukon Region of Canada from the CMIP5 ensemble.
• Extremes: extend the analysis of projected future climate change to include changes in the frequency and intensity of extremes in our region.
• Impacts: extend the analysis of projected future change to include regional impacts relevant to ecosystems, resource management, infrastructure, and local government.

Key Personnel:

• Charles Curry, Acting Lead, Regional Climate Impacts
• Trevor Murdock, Lead, Regional Climate Impacts - On Secondment
• Stephen Sobie, RCI Analyst
• Kari Tyler, User Engagement and Training Specialist
• Stacey O’Sullivan - Content Development and User Engagement Assistant