Ensemble Downscaled Climate Dataset for Alaska and Hawaii Under Historical and Future Conditions

Hawaii has an incredible diversity of climate zones packed into a small collection of Islands. Understanding climate and climate change over Hawaii therefore requires accounting for the topographic complexity behind these climate zones. Meanwhile, Alaska is one of the coldest regions in the world inhabited by humans, and has experienced the largest temperature increase in the United States, with temperatures that are projected to rise during this century. However, despite being a hotspot for climate change, little is known about future changes in natural hazards across this region.

We have created an ensemble downscaled climate product for both these states. The dataset includes daily temperature and daily precipitation over the period 1981-2100, sampling from 22 global climate models, using 8 statistical downscaling techniques, and a future climate forcing scenarios represented by 4 Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).

This community dataset will permit investigations into the sources of climate uncertainty and climate change uncertainty at the local scale. They may also be used for climate risk assessment across a range of societal sectors. A primary reason for their development by the authors is to drive hydrologic models and explore questions of hydrologic change in these underexplored regions. These data will be described in a paper to be submitted to the journal Scientific Data.