New regional climate projections for south-east Australia using latest climate models

As the international community received the latest assessment of climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in August 2021, NSW Government climate researchers were testing and validating the global climate models (CMIP6) that underpin its findings. This work is done as part of the development of the next generation of regional climate data delivered through the expansion of the NSW and Australian Regional Climate Modelling (NARCliM) project.

The development of NARCliM2.0 as it is known, is spearheaded by the Department’s climate scientists as part of a cross jurisdictional, multi-agency partnership.  The new climate projections will offer stakeholders across the NSW, ACT and South Australian governments and beyond, as well as businesses and communities, the latest climate information to assist them to better understand climate change, climate risks and potential impacts.

What will set NARCliM2.0 data apart from previous generations of regional climate data, is not only the use of the latest CMIP6 models, but the addition of a larger spread of models to provide a clearer picture of future climate change for our region. 

NARCliM2.0 will also provide end-users with the ability to ‘zoom in’ more closely over south-eastern Australia to capture greater detail on climate for that particular region (up to 6 kilometres closer than earlier generations of NARCliM data).

Ongoing climate research is examining the independence of the CMIP6 global climate models, how well they simulate for our region and reflect a diversity of future climate change.

For questions about NARCliM please email: [email protected]