AGSL GeoDiscovery

Modeled historical climate metrics, Wisconsin 1981-2010 (2026 release, core metrics)

Description:

Resource provided by UW-Madison Robinson Map Library.

This geodatabase contains a core version of the probabilistic downscaled climate modeling data produced by the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI) Climate Working Group. These data are the same as used in WICCI's 2026 climate assessment report (available at https://wicci.wisc.edu/). The data is meant for planners, decision-makers, and researchers to incorporate the latest and most detailed climate modeling data into their projects and analysis. This dataset contains a simplified version of the historical downscaled climate data produced by the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts' (WICCI) Climate Working Group. This dataset contains several temperature metrics averaged by month across the 30-year period from 1981-2010. This historical climate data is a subset of the downscaling 'de-biasing' process where the 1950-2005 time period in the climate model is matched to the 1950-2009 in the observed station record. The slight mismatch in the climate and observed time period has negligible impact because climate change operates slowly over decades. Instead it is more important that the climate record is long enough to 'average out' natural climate variability. These core metrics include both temperature and precipitation metrics including average maximum temperature, average minimum temperature, and precipitation totals. These averages and totals are aggregated both annually and by season for each 20-year period. In addition, the data includes the estimated number of days per month that meet commonly-used thresholds: days where the maximum temperature exceeds 90 F, 95 F, or 100 F; days where the minimum temperature exceeds 70 F or falls below 32 F or 0 F; days where precipitation exceeds 1”, 2”, and 3”; and days where there is no precipitation. Both raster and vector contour layers are provided for each metric. The spatial resolution of the data is 0.08 x 0.0625 degrees (approximately 4x4 miles on the ground). The python code used to produce this simplified version is available at https://github.com/TheGeographer/DownscaledClimateData. A 'how to' guide for viewing and analyzing these data is available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IoZHkLF1faWOuA0lH7zjda7YxBsextPwj97GMAdYJy8/edit?usp=sharing.

Identifier:

44729F5D-BC09-44CD-892D-4301167D7FA5

Language:

English

Creator:

Dr. Eric Compas, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Publisher:

Dr. Eric Compas, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Provider:

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Resource Class:

Datasets

Subject:

Atmospheric Sciences, Environment, Geoscientific Information, Health, and Planning and Cadastral

Temporal Coverage:

2021-2040

Date Issued:

Spatial Coverage:

Wisconsin

Access Rights:

Public

Format:

Geodatabase