Publications

Evaluation and Bias-Correction of Dynamically Downscaled Climate Projections

Citation

Mauger, G.S. and J.S. Won 2024. Evaluation and Bias-Correction of Dynamically Downscaled Climate Projections. Report prepared for the Puget Sound Partnership. Climate Impacts Group, University of Washington.


Abstract

The current version of the Stormwater Heatmap includes one dynamically downscaled projection, based on the GFDL-CM3 model. There are two limitations to the current approach. First, it is based on just one climate model projection. Given that there is no way to objectively rank one climate change projection over another, best practices in climate change analysis suggest analyzing the potential effects of multiple projections (e.g., Ransom et al., 2018). Second, the results for the GFDL-CM3 model projection were used directly, without any correction for biases. Recent work has identified biases in these projections that must be corrected prior to use in hydrologic modeling (e.g. Mauger et al. 2021). The purpose of this project was to improve on the climate projections in the Stormwater Heatmap tool by addressing these two limitations. Specifically, we developed an ensemble of dynamically downscaled projections, bias-corrected based on comparisons with observations.