Coinciding with the the draft of the Spanish National Plan for Climate Change Adaptation going public, it was time for us to update the Climate Change Scenario Viewer we developed for AdapteCCa. This new version brings two major novelties: incorporating bias-adjusted data into the viewer and making a new variable available.
Bias- adjusted data
Global climate models, like the ones we use for future climate projections, have some limitations when compares with observational data. To adjust these deviations of the Euro-CORDEX international initiative, we have applied (jointly with the Physics Institute of Cantabria) a statistical method for biad adjustment.
The technique used in this case is EQM. For further details on the description and validation of this adjustment method, please read the paper An intercomparison of a large ensemble of statistical downscaling methods over Europe: Results from the VALUE perfect predictor crossâvalidation experiment, published on the International Journal of Climatology. We collaborated on it a while ago.
More technical documentation on this is available here.
New variable: Nueva variable: potential evapotranspiration
We have included a new variable, useful for inititatives working in sectors like agriculture or forest management: potential evapotranspiration. This variable integrates the phenomena of evaporation through soil surface and plant transpiration under optimal conditions: if there were no limitation in water availability. This variable is usually combined with precipitation, to estimate the aridity of different zones.