Downscaled Climate Projections for the Edwards Aquifer Region (EAR) using CMIP5 for the years 2006 – 2100

Global climate models (GCMs) are computationally intensive, physics-based research tools used to simulate the climate system. GCM can also be useful in applied research contexts with the use of statistical downscaling techniques. This collection of statistically downscaled climate projections includes 7 sets of SD-processed CMIP5 projections of daily high temperature, daily low temperature, and daily total precipitation across the Edwards Aquifer Region (EAR) in south central Texas. These sets of projections were created using four GCMs from the CMIP5 archive (CMCC-CM, HadGEM2-CC, inmcm4, MRI-ESM1), each of which simulated 21st century climate responses for multiple future emissions scenarios. The CMIP5 GCMs simulated response under the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. The equi-distant quantile mapping method (EDQM) was used for statistical downscaling with the Daymet v. 4 as the observational data used for training. The resulting SD-processed projections are on a 1 km by 1 km grid covering the EAR in south central Texas (100.75 degress E to 97.5 degrees E, 28.75 degrees N to 30.50 degrees N). Both historical baseline files (1980-2005) and future projections (2006-2100) are provided. Applied researchers may explore aspects of potential changes in the EAR using these high resolution projections, including as inputs to additional modelling (e.g. hydrology modeling, crop modeling, etc.). This collection should not be considered comprehensive in spanning the entire scope of SD processed climate projections for the EAR. These climate projection data products are provided as is without any warranty and no agreement to support subsequent projects based on this dataset, beyond providing the data to public domain.