ALARM observed and scenario climate data

Introduction

This page summarizes and provides access to data files of the ALARM observed and scenario climate datasets which have been developed in parallel with storylines, socio-economic, land-use and nitrogen deposition scenarios. The core set of the climate data builds on the CRU TS 1.2 observed and TYN SC 1.0 scenario data developed at CRU.

The ALARM climate data are made available free of charge for non-commercial uses provided that the sources are properly acknowledged (e.g. see the suggested citation, below).

History of changes

• 23 January 2012: link added to paper documenting the ALARM climate data: Fronzek et al. 2012, doi:10.1111/j.1466-8238.2011.00695.x
• 1 March 2011: public release of ALARM monthly observed and scenario climate data
• Show older changes
  • 20 January 2009: corrections to GDD and EET of the GRAS-CUT scenario
    • correction of a parameter in the header of transient data (affected files: GRAS-CUT.A1FI.HadCM3.2001-2060.gdd/eet)
    • period-averages for 2051-2060 of GDD and EET were too small by a factor 10 and are now corrected (affected files: GRAS-CUT.A1FI.HadCM3.ts.2051-2060.gdd/eet).
  • 28 February 2008: PET data was renamed to EET (monthly estimates of evapotranspiration were incorrectly labelled as potential evapotranspiration, but were in fact calculated as equilibrium evapotranspiration); a report was added documenting the calculation methods and the technical documentation (readme.txt) updated accordingly
  • 18 September 2007: incorrect links to transient GDD and PET scenario data files were corrected
  • 9 May 2006:
    • files containing the detrended observed time-series for the period 1951-2000 have been added to the server; these files were used to construct the scenarios and can serve as reference data
    • daily data from RCM simulations have been available for some time; as data volumes are too large for online provision, offline data transfer can be arranged with Kirsti Jylhä (FMI).
    • update of the technical documentation (readme.txt) to reflect these changes
  • 9 January 2006: provision of a series of maps and graphs documenting the ALARM climate scenarios
  • 12 December 2005:
    • delivery of new monthly vapour pressure scenarios
    • delivery of GRAS-CUT scenarios; the provisional GRAS-CUT tmp and pre are still kept on the server for reference, but should not be used any longer
    • update of the technical documentation (readme.txt) to reflect these changes
  • 18 November 2005: incorrect monthly vapour pressure scenarios
    The data (released in July 2005) were incorrectly selected from a previous ('ATEAM') version which has substantially different values for some scenarios. The data files were renamed to include 'old' in the file names (e.g. BAMBU.A2.CSIRO2.2001-2100.old.vap). A new version of ALARM vapour pressure data will soon be delivered. The observed data set is not affected.
  • 24 October 2005: correction of broken links on this page
  • 23 September 2005:
    • delivery of period-averaged data for 2 observed and 5 future time slices
    • delivery of two derived variables: growing degree days above 5°C (GDD) and potential evapotranspiration (PET)
    • *.TMN, *.TMX and GRAS-CUTprov.* files were reformatted as the previous format was not correct; the data themselves are unchanged
    • update of the technical documentation to reflect these changes
    • release of a software to calculate period-averages for time slices (see section Software tools)
  • 13 September 2005: the compression format of data files was changed due to download problems with some web browsers; to decompress you can use most standard software (e.g. WinZip) or Unix command tar (tar xzf filename.tgz)
  • July 2005: release of the core variable set of monthly climate data

Documents:

• Fronzek, S., Carter, T.R. and Jylhä, K. 2012. Representing two centuries of past and future climate for assessing risks to biodiversity in Europe. Global Ecology and Biogeography 21(1), 19-35, doi:10.1111/j.1466-8238.2011.00695.x

  This paper has been published in a Special Issue of Global Ecology and Biogeography that includes papers documenting various aspects of the ALARM scenarios and their application for assessing risks to biodiversity.

• Mitchell, T.D., Carter, T.R., Jones, P.D., Hulme, M. and New, M. 2004. A comprehensive set of high-resolution grids of monthly climate for Europe and the globe: the observed record (1901-2000) and 16 scenarios (2001-2100). Tyndall Centre Working Paper 55, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, 30 pp.

  This report was prepared for the FP5 ATEAM (Advanced Terrestrial Ecosystem Analysis and Modelling) project, and describes in more detail the methodology for scenario development and the construction of the gridded observed climate dataset.

• readme.txt: gives technical information about variables, data formats and time slices.
• The observed monthly climate data, CRU TS 1.2, extends from 1901-2000. The reference to this dataset is Mitchell et al. (2004), see above. This has been superseded by a new dataset that provides updated information (CRU TS 3.0, preliminarily to 2006 and planned for regular updating - see CRU's page on high-resolution gridded datasets). Please also consult Tim Mitchell's documentation on time-series analysis and FAQ on the CRU TS 1.2 and TYN SC 1.0 datasets.

Climate scenario maps and graphs:

• Time series graphs for the locations of the ALARM Field Site Network (5.4 MB)
• European maps of changes in tmp, tmn, tmx, pre, vap, gdd, pet, cld (7.4 - 9.4 MB) for different time slices

Suggested citation

The ALARM climate observations and scenarios are described by Fronzek et al. (2012), with additional methodological information provided in Mitchell et al (2004). The data are downloadable from: http://www.alarmproject.net/alarm

Data download

Data files can be downloaded for each variable and each scenario separately. File size is appr. 50 MB for the transient monthly data (in ascii format provided as compressed tar-balls - to uncompress use e.g WinZip or tar xzf filename.tgz). Period averages are kept in individual files per time slice, variable and scenario/observation and put into packages for each variable (file size: appr. 23 MB per variable). Use the following table to select:

^*) Variable names: TMP - mean temperature, PRE - precipitation, VAP - vapour pressure, CLD - cloudiness, DTR - diurnal temperature range, TMN - minimum temperature, TMX - maximum temperature, GDD - growing degree days above 5°C, EET - equilibrium evapotranspiration

Software tools

The sub-directory tools contains software that can be used to analyse the ALARM climate scenarios. If you want to contribute programs that could be useful to ALARM partners, please send them to S. Fronzek.

Software for the monthly observed and GCM data in ASCII format:

Acknowledgements

We thank Mike Hulme, Phil Jones, Tim Mitchell and Mark New for kindly supplying the CRU_TS_1.2 and TYN_SC_1.0 datasets; Erik Kjellström for data from the RCA3 RCM simulation, Michael Vellinga for data from a HadCM3 simulation used to construct the GRAS-CUT scenario, and Markus Erhard and Thomas Hickler for help with data analysis.

Last change: 23 January 2012, S. Fronzek