Climate Wizard Details
Climate Wizard is a web-based analysis and mapping tool that uses state-of-the-art climate models and advanced statistical analysis to examine both the current and future climate conditions of any place on the Earth.
Pre-calculated map products are available through a free web page where users can easily visualize and download data for both historic and future climate conditions. Future climate projections are based on General Circulation Models output produced under three different greenhouse gas emission scenarios for two future time periods; mid and end century.
Additionally the user has the ability to examine the statistical variations of 16 different general circulation models used to generate these future climate projections by displaying individual model results or selected model combinations.
The Climate Wizard uses two common approaches for representing climate change data: (1) climatic departures - comparing climate in a given year or time period to a baseline period and (2) trend analysis - calculating a statistical rate of change over a particular time period. Depending on what specific scientific, management or policy questions are being addressed, certain climate analysis techniques are more appropriate to use than others. Calculating climatic departures is useful for identifying specific years above or below a threshold value. This climatic threshold value could be the average of a past time period (e.g., the average of the past century), or a threshold relevant to a specific ecological process. However, when the question being address relates to how climate has generally changed over time, trend analyses are more appropriate for statistically describing the average change in climate per year over a given entire period.
We have recently released a custom version of the Climate Wizard application. With this new tool a user can define a relatively small geographic area of interest and conduct site-specific analyses using both historical data and possible future conditions that are based on low (B1), moderate (A1B), and high (A2) carbon emissions scenarios. Sixteen general circulation models are available to provide a range of possible outcomes, and users can analyze absolute and percentage changes in annual, seasonal or monthly climate conditions in graphic or map form.
