NARCliM: Future regional projections for south-east Australia.

NARCliM (NSW/ACT Regional Climate Modelling project) is a regional climate modelling project for the Australian area. It provides a comprehensive dynamically downscaled climate dataset for the CORDEX- AustralAsia region at 50 km, and south-east Australia at a resolution of 10 km. NARCliM data is being used by the NSW and ACT governments to design their climate change adaptation plans. Data is available through the AdaptNSW website (http://climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/). NARCliM uses version 3.3 of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model (RCM) to perform an ensemble of simulations for the present and the projected future climate. WRF is run in three different model configurations (different combinations of physical parametrisations) that have been shown to perform well in south-east Australia and were chosen based on performance and independence. These three RCMs are used to simulate three different periods: 1990–2009, 2020–2039 and 2060–2079. Four different global climate models (GCMs: MIROC-medres 3.2, ECHAM5, CCCMA 3.1 and CSIRO Mk3.0) from CMIP3 are used as initial and boundary conditions for the WRF simulations. These GCMs were chosen through a process that considered model performance, independence and projected future changes. Thus a RCM ensemble of 12 simulations for each period is obtained. Additionally to the GCM- driven simulations, three control run simulations driven by the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis for the entire period of 1950–2009 are also performed in order to validate the RCMs performance in the area. In this talk, we will assess the significance and inter-model agreement of the RCM biases for temperature and precipitation along with the ability of the models to capture teleconnections with large scale climate modes. Future projections of changes in mean temperature and precipitation, as well as extreme precipitation and heat waves are reported. Finally, future changes in East Coast Lows are reported.