The Earth has only one atmosphere but its state is constantly changing. Although both weather and climate describe the state of the atmosphere, WEATHER is what happens in short periods of time, which can range from minutes to a few days. The weather in a certain area is affected by several factors like temperature, humidity, wind speed, and air pressure, among others. Thus, a good example of short-term descriptions of the atmosphere state are the weather forecasts.

A five-day weather forecast
(Credits: Icons made by Freepik)

CLIMATE is the state of the atmosphere that we can expect in a certain area during a specific season and is determined by averaging over a long period (typically more than 20 years) the short-term observations of weather¹. For example, based on observations, we can expect the maximum daily temperature in New Delhi² to be over 39°C during May and the minimum daily temperature in Sapporo³ to be as low as -7°C during January. On ClimVault, you will be able to access post-processed CLIMATE information of the 21st century that was projected by several climate models.

The term CLIMATE CHANGE refers to the long-term changes of the atmosphere mean state, which can be caused by the sun's energy output, volcanic activity, the man-made changes in the atmospheric concentration of aerosols or greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, and even the changes of land use.

Natural and man-made causes of climate change
(Credits: photographs courtesy of Pexels and pixabay)

According to one of the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change⁴, we know that the global mean temperature has increased about 1°C compared to that of the last decades of the 19th century, which is a period before the massive industrialization and the emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases began to rapidly increase due to the population growth and the technological development of the 20th century.

Even though this relatively small (1°C) increase of the global mean temperature does not seem to represent a major concern, the changes in the frequency and magnitude of EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS have already been affecting the human activities, the livelihood, and the surrounding natural systems differently by season and region. While in some regions of the world heavy precipitation is getting more frequent, in other regions, hot and dry spells are getting longer. These new conditions are a call for policymakers to assess the related impacts and risks and decide whether they are managed through adaptation or mitigation measures.

Extreme weather conditions
(Credits: photographs courtesy of pixabay)

Undoubtedly, knowing how climate change is going to affect a certain region has become of paramount importance for stakeholders at the time of deciding how to allocate their resources and whether the proposed projects and measures are the most adequate solution to minimize the potential risks. A common obstacle in the process of climate change impact evaluation, however, is how to interpret the projected climate and the different scenarios that are generated by the scientific community.

Because specific climate change impacts affect differently each sector of a society, the severity of weather events is only one factor that adds uncertainty in the decision-making process. Therefore, the adopted mitigation or adaptation measures need to be based on a robust analysis that considers other sociodemographic factors, like economic growth and migration, in addition to the different climate change scenarios (and their corresponding effects to extreme weather). Examples of such measures are turning to (other) renewable energies, improving river flood or sea level rise protection, early warning evacuation programs, or changing to more dry- and heat-resistant crops⁵.

Examples of adaptation and mitigation measures
(Credits: photographs courtesy of pixabay)

ClimVault is an online open-access climate data portal developed at Nippon Koei Co., Ltd.

As part of our commitment to contribute to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals, our R&D Center has been working on increasing the understanding and usability of the climate information that is constantly being updated by several climatology research institutions around the world. Because supporting in this manner the non-expert and particularly vulnerable regions will contribute not only to Goal 13: Climate Action but also to the other SDGs (zero hunger , good health and well-being , clean water and sanitation , and sustainable cities and communities , among others)⁶, we hope that the open-access information provided on ClimVault can be useful as a quick reference in climate change impact studies.

Although of great value, the raw output of the climate models requires the processing of large amounts of data and often conduct additional numerical post-processes that involve bias correction, evaluation of models and downscaling. These post-processes, which require statistical techniques and computational power, are conducted by our researchers at the R&D center. In its first (beta) version, ClimVault makes available climate data that has been bias-corrected in two simple formats:

1. Visualize Climate Trends and Extreme Weather Indices on our Atlas of interactive worldwide maps. The indices are available as long-term averages during a historical reference period or as projected changes during three future periods of the 21st century. Click the image below to launch the Atlas.

2. Download the bias-corrected timeseries of climate variables for major cities around the world. The files in csv format include bias-corrected data of several climate models corresponding to the periods from 1979 to 2005 and from 2010 to 2099. Click the image below to start downloading climate data.

To know more details about the reference data (observations of precipitation, temperature, etc.), the climate models, and the post-processing of the climate information, please checkout the descriptions in our METHODS section.

Nippon Koei Co. Ltd. is a Civil Engineering Consultant Company located in Tokyo, Japan. To know more about our services around the globe please click HERE.

For any inquiries and feedback please email us at admin@nk-climvault.com