North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program dataset

The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) dataset contains simulation output from six regional climate models: CRCM, ECPC-RSM, HadRM3, MM5, RegCM3, and WRF. More than forty 2-D and 3-D output variables are stored to support impacts analysis, model evaluation, and further dynamical downscaling. All models are run at 50-km spatial resolution, with data stored at 3-hourly intervals. The simulation domain covers most of North America, including the conterminous United States, most of Canada, and parts of Mexico. Data is stored in CF-compliant netCDF files. Each RCM is forced with boundary conditions from the NCEP-2 reanalyis for a 25 historical period from 1980-2004. Each RCM is also driven with boundary conditions from two of four GCMs for a 30-year current climate period (1971-2000) and a 30-year future period (2041-2070). The four GCMs are CCSM3, CGCM3, GFDL, and HadCM3. The future GCM simulations use the SRES-A2 emissions scenario. There are also two timeslice experiments using the CCSM3 and GFDL GCMs running the atmospheric component alone at 50-km resolution.