Global climate-related predictors at kilometer resolution for the past and future

[摘要] A multitude of physical and biological processes on which ecosystems and human societies depend are governed by the climate, andunderstanding how these processes are altered by climate change is centralto mitigation efforts. We developed a set of climate-related variables atas yet unprecedented spatiotemporal detail as a basis for environmental and ecological analyses. We downscaled time series of near-surface relativehumidity (hurs) and cloud area fraction (clt) under the consideration of orography and wind as well as near-surface wind speed (sfcWind) using the delta-changemethod. Combining these grids with mechanistically downscaled information ontemperature, precipitation, and solar radiation, we then calculated vapor pressure deficit (vpd), surface downwelling shortwave radiation (rsds), potentialevapotranspiration (pet), the climate moisture index (cmi), and site water balance (swb) at a monthly temporal and 30 arcsec spatial resolution globally from 1980 until 2018 (time-series variables). At the same spatial resolution, wefurther estimated climatological normals of frost change frequency (fcf), snowcover days (scd), potential net primary productivity (npp), growing degree days(gdd), and growing season characteristics for the periods 1981–2010, 2011–2040,2041–2070, and 2071–2100, considering three shared socioeconomic pathways(SSP126, SSP370, SSP585) and five Earth system models (projected variables).Time-series variables showed high accuracy when validated againstobservations from meteorological stations and when compared to alternative products. Projected variables were also highly correlated with observations,although some variables showed notable biases, e.g., snow cover days.Together, the CHELSA-BIOCLIM + dataset presented here ( https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.332 , Brun et al., 2022) allows improvement toour understanding of patterns and processes that are governed by climate,including the impact of recent and future climate changes on the world's ecosystems and the associated services on societies.

[学科分类] 眼科学