Delaware Climate Projections Data

The data within this portal, used for visualizations and available for download, are data results from a selection of 9 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models chosen as part of the Delaware Climate Change Impact Assessment (DCCIA).

Each model was run for both low-emission and high-emission scenarios, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 respectively, and statistically downscaled to the 14 Delaware stations with long-term historical records. (See Map and Table below) Weather stations that did not have sufficiently long and/or complete observational records to provide an adequate sampling of observed climate variability at their locations were eliminated from this analysis. While each station's period of record (POR) is different, the observational records for these 14 stations span from 1893 - 2010.

In order to train and validate the climate models, researchers on this project used long-term station data from the Global Historical Climatology Network and the National Climatic Data Center Co-op Observing Network, supplemented with additional station data provided by the Delaware State Climatologist. All station data was quality-controlled to remove possibly erroneous data points before being used to train the statistical downscaling model. A discussion of the comparisons of the observed data to the modeled data can be found in the DCCIA Chapter 3: Comparing Observed and Modeled Historic Data.