Predicted Temperature and Precipitation Values Derived from Modeled Localized Weather Regimes and Climate Change in the State of Massachusetts

Predicted temperature and precipitation values were generated throughout the state of Massachusetts using a stochastic weather generator (SWG) model to develop various climate change scenarios (Steinschneider and Najibi, 2022a). This data release contains temperature and precipitation statistics (SWG_outputTable.csv) derived from the SWG model under the surface warming derived from the RCP 8.5 climate change emissions scenario at 30-year moving averages centered around 2030, 2050, 2070, 2090. During the climate modeling process, extreme precipitation values were also generated by scaling previously published intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) values from the NOAA Atlas 14 database (Perica and others, 2015) by a factor per degree expected warming produced from the SWG model generator (Najibi and others, 2022; Steinschneider and Najibi, 2022b, c). These newly generated IDF values (IDF_outputTable.csv) account for expected changes in extreme precipitation driven by variations in weather associated with climate change throughout the state of Massachusetts. The data presented here were developed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and housed on the Massachusetts climate change clearinghouse webpage (Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, 2022). References: Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, 2022, Resilient MA Maps and Data Center at URL https://resilientma-mapcenter-mass-eoeea.hub.arcgis.com/ Najibi, N., Mukhopadhyay, S., and Steinschneider, S., 2022, Precipitation scaling with temperature in the Northeast US: Variations by weather regime, season, and precipitation intensity: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 49, no. 8, 14 p., https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL097100. Perica, S., Pavlovic, S., St. Laurent, M., Trypaluk, C., Unruh, D., Martin, D., and Wilhite, O., 2015, NOAA Atlas 14 Volume 10 Version 3, Precipitation-Frequency Atlas of the United States, Northeastern States (revised 2019): NOAA, National Weather Service, https://doi.org/10.25923/99jt-a543. Steinschneider, S., and Najibi, N., 2022a, A weather-regime based stochastic weather generator for climate scenario development across Massachusetts: Technical Documentation, Cornell University, https://eea-nescaum-dataservices-assets-prd.s3.amazonaws.com/cms/GUIDELINES/FinalTechnicalDocumentation_WGEN_20220405.pdf. Steinschneider, S., and Najibi, N., 2022b, Future projections of extreme precipitation across Massachusetts—a theory-based approach: Technical Documentation, Cornell University, https://eea-nescaum-dataservices-assets-prd.s3.amazonaws.com/cms/GUIDELINES/FinalTechnicalDocumentation_IDF_Curves_Dec2021.pdf. Steinschneider, S., and Najibi, N., 2022c, Observed and projected scaling of daily extreme precipitation with dew point temperature at annual and seasonal scales across the northeast United States: Journal of Hydrometeorology, v. 23, no. 3, p. 403-419, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-21-0183.1.