Visualizations From NASA Show Potential 21st Century Temperature, Precipitation Changes
New data visualizations from the NASA Center for Climate Simulation and NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio show how climate models used in the new report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate possible temperature and precipitation pattern changes throughout the 21st century.
For the IPCC's Physical Science Basis and Summary for Policymakers reports, scientists referenced an international climate modeling effort to study how the Earth might respond to four different scenarios of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions throughout the 21st century. The Summary for Policymakers, the first official piece of the group's Fifth Assessment Report, was released Fri., Sept. 27.
This modeling effort, called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), includes dozens of climate models from institutions around the world, including from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
To produce visualizations that show temperature and precipitation changes similar to those included in the IPCC report, the NASA Center for Climate Simulation calculated average temperature and precipitation changes from models that ran the four different emissions scenarios. The final products are visual representations of how much temperature and precipitation patterns would change through 2100 compared to the historical average from the end of the 20th century.
All maps and animations available at these links:
- Climate Models Project 21st Century Temperature Changes
- Climate Models Project 21st Century Temperature and Precipitation Changes (on a globe)
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