Factsheets 17: The National Partnership for Climate Projections
Collaboration is an important part of delivering quality climate projections data and services. Within Australia, several organisations produce downscaled, high-resolution regional climate projection information for Australia based on the latest generation of climate models from the 6th phase of the global Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6).
This collaboration is coordinated through the National Partnership for Climate Projections to ensure consistency in the models and scenarios used by these multiple teams.
What is the National Partnership for Climate Projections?
The National Partnership for Climate Projections is a voluntary collaboration established to develop a consistent approach to deliver comparable, robust, fit-for-purpose future climate information to assess climate risks and inform adaptation planning.
The Partnership includes state and territory governments, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, universities, and Australian Government funded initiatives such as the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Climate Systems Hub and the Australian Climate Service (ACS).
The partnership has three working groups (WGs) that concentrate on key aspects of the multi-faceted work involved in delivering climate projections data and services:
- WG1 - Climate change science and projections
- WG2 - Technology, computing and data
- WG3 - Climate services and user needs.
The Climate Projections Roadmap for Australia
The Climate Projections Roadmap for Australia describes the approach to deliver national future climate information to assess climate risks and inform adaptation planning.
The Roadmap includes activities related to the production (e.g. model selection), climate projections analysis (e.g. hazards assessments), and delivery of projections data and information via climate services. The roadmap also seeks to increase collaboration over the longer term to guide investment in climate research and enabling research infrastructure.
The Roadmap outlines a collaborative approach to bring together existing initiatives from the 4 main climate modelling groups in the Partnership - the Australian Climate Service (CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology), the Queensland Future Climate Science Program (Queensland Government and the University of Queensland) and the NSW Government.
Under the Roadmap, these 4 modelling groups will provide CMIP6 projections data for three emissions scenarios (described using Shared Socio-economic Pathways or SSPs) that represent the most likely range of future emissions - SSP1-2.6 as a low-end scenario, SSP2-4.5 as a moderate scenario, and SSP3-7.0 as the high-end emissions scenario. Please refer to factsheet #6 for more information on these SSPs.
Table 1 in the Roadmap outlines the work underway to produce national downscaled climate projections across the main modelling groups, including information on the regional downscaling approach, the models used and scenarios.
Why are there still multiple climate data sources?
You may see organisations within the Partnership release new downscaled climate data products as their modelling work is completed. The partners may also provide their own tailored 'portals' that enable easy access to climate projections data and information for their jurisdictions. For example, under the Partnership, both the Queensland and NSW governments are producing downscaled climate projections datasets that cover all of Australia. These national datasets are usually released as gridded datasets suitable for more technical users. Please see factsheet # 4 for more information and links to access Queensland's gridded datasets.
However, both state governments also produce climate portals designed to meet the needs of users within their states - the Queensland Future Climate resource provides climate projections data and information for Queensland only, while the NSW Government provides climate data and information for NSW and the ACT via AdaptNSW. The Australian Climate Service will produce a climate portal designed to support the National Emergency Management Agency, the National Climate Risk Assessment and the development of the National Adaptation Plan.
Other states and territories also release climate information via portals or reports tailored to the needs of users in their jurisdictions.
The National Environmental Science Program Climate Systems Hub provides a handy guide to the different sources of climate information and how you can pick the right one for your needs.
For people in Queensland, factsheet #2 provides a similar guide to climate resources relevant for Queensland.
