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    Southeast Alaska is a topographically complex region that is experiencing rapid rates of change with climate regimes that range from temperate rainforest to expansive glaciers and icefields. Global climate models – with a typical spatial resolution of 100 km – poorly resolve this area, while recent downscaling efforts have sought to improve upon existing deficiencies. This research produced hourly dynamically downscaled climate model simulations at 1- and 4-km spatial resolution for both historical (1981-2019) and future periods (2031-2060) across Southeast Alaska. Particular focus was placed on three key watersheds: 1) Montana Creek near Juneau, 2) Indian River near Sitka and 3) Staney Creek on Prince of Wales Island. The projected simulations were based on the representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) emissions scenario. The simulations included the historical Climate Forecast System Reanalysis, and two climate models (the Community Climate System Model, version 4 and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Climate Model, version 3), which were both run for historical and future periods. All downscaling simulations were run using a 17-month spin-up period to sufficiently generate the land surface state and the lateral boundary conditions for each were updated every 6 hours to constrain the output. The downscaling was completed using the Weather and Research Forecasting Model, version 4.0.

  • This dataset consists of spatial representations of vegetation types produced through summarization of ALFRESCO model outputs. These specific outputs are from the Integrated Ecosystem Model (IEM) project, AR5/CMIP5 climate inputs (IEM Generation 2). ALFRESCO outputs were summarized over three future eras (2010-2039, 2040-269, 2070-2099) and a historical era (1950-2008). Both the proportions of all possible vegetation types and the modal vegetation type (most common type over a given era) are available as sub-datasets. Each are summarized over two future emissions scenarios for five CMIP5 models.

  • This set of files includes downscaled historical estimates of decadal means of annual day of freeze or thaw (ordinal day of the year), and length of growing season (numbers of days, 0-365) for each decade from 1910 - 2006 (CRU TS 3.0) or 2009 (CRU TS 3.1) at at 771 x 771 meter spatial resolution. Each file represents a decadal mean of an annual mean calculated from mean monthly data.

  • This dataset contains climate "indicators" (also referred to as climate indices or metrics) computed over one historical period (1980-2009) using the NCAR Daymet dataset, and two future periods (2040-2069, 2070-2099) using two statistically downscaled global climate model projections, each run under two plausible greenhouse gas futures (RCP 4.5 and 8.5). The indicators within this dataset include: hd: “Hot day” threshold -- the highest observed daily maximum 2 m air temperature such that there are 5 other observations equal to or greater than this value. cd: “Cold day” threshold -- the lowest observed daily minimum 2 m air temperature such that there are 5 other observations equal to or less than this value. rx1day: Maximum 1-day precipitation su: "Summer Days" –- Annual number of days with maximum 2 m air temperature above 25 C dw: "Deep Winter days" –- Annual number of days with minimum 2 m air temperature below -30 C wsdi: Warm Spell Duration Index -- Annual count of occurrences of at least 5 consecutive days with daily mean 2 m air temperature above 90th percentile of historical values for the date cdsi: Cold Spell Duration Index -- Same as WDSI, but for daily mean 2 m air temperature below 10th percentile rx5day: Maximum 5-day precipitation r10mm: Number of days with precipitation > 10 mm cwd: Consecutive wet days –- number of the most consecutive days with precipitation > 1 mm cdd: Consecutive dry days –- number of the most consecutive days with precipitation < 1 mm

  • This set of files includes downscaled projections of monthly means, and derived annual, seasonal, and decadal means of monthly mean temperatures (in degrees Celsius, no unit conversion necessary) from Jan 2006 - Dec 2100 at 771x771 meter spatial resolution. For seasonal means, the four seasons are referred to by the first letter of 3 months making up that season: * `JJA`: summer (June, July, August) * `SON`: fall (September, October, November) * `DJF`: winter (December, January, February) * `MAM`: spring (March, April, May) The downscaling process utilizes PRISM climatological datasets from 1971-2000. Each set of files originates from one of five top-ranked global circulation models from the CMIP5/AR5 models and RCPs or is calculated as a 5 Model Average.

  • This set of files includes downscaled historical estimates of monthly total precipitation (in mm, no unit conversion necessary) from 1901 - 2005, at 15km x 15km spatial resolution. They include data for Alaska and Western Canada. Each set of files originates from one of five top ranked global circulation models from the CMIP5/AR5 models and RCPs, or is calculated as a 5 Model Average. These outputs are from the Historical runs of the GCMs. The downscaling process utilizes CRU CL v. 2.1 climatological datasets from 1961-1990 as the baseline for the Delta Downscaling method.

  • This dataset contains historical and projected dynamically downscaled climate data for the State of Alaska and surrounding regions at 20km spatial resolution and hourly temporal resolution. Select variables are also summarized into daily resolutions. This data was produced using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model (Version 3.5). We downscaled both ERA-Interim historical reanalysis data (1979 - Oct 2015) and both historical and projected runs from 2 GCM’s from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project 5 (CMIP5): GFDL-CM3 and NCAR-CCSM4 (historical run: 1970-2005 and RCP 8.5: 2006-2100). This dataset was updated to a version 1.1 in August, 2023 to retain useful fields of latitude and longitude geolocation grids from the WRF model. The original version is available upon request.

  • This set of files includes downscaled projections of monthly totals, and derived annual, seasonal, and decadal means of monthly total precipitation (in millimeters, no unit conversion necessary) from Jan 2006 - Dec 2100 at 771x771 meter spatial resolution. Each set of files originates from one of five top ranked global circulation models from the CMIP5/AR5 models and RPCs, or is calculated as a 5 Model Average. The downscaling process utilizes PRISM climatological datasets from 1971-2000. Brief descriptions of the datasets: Monthly precipitation totals: The total precipitation, in mm, for the month. For Decadal outputs: 1. Decadal Average Total Monthly Precipitation: 10 year average of total monthly precipitation. Example: All January precipitation files for a decade are added together and divided by ten. 2. Decadal Average Seasonal Precipitation Totals: 10 year average of seasonal precipitation totals. Example: MAM seasonal totals for every year in a decade are added together and divided by ten. 3. Decadal Average Annual Precipitation Totals: 10 year average of annual cumulative precipitation. For seasonal means, the four seasons are referred to by the first letter of 3 months making up that season: * `JJA`: summer (June, July, August) * `SON`: fall (September, October, November) * `DJF`: winter (December, January, February) * `MAM`: spring (March, April, May) Please note that these maps represent climatic estimates only. While we have based our work on scientifically accepted data and methods, uncertainty is always present. Uncertainty in model outputs tends to increase for more distant climatic estimates from present day for both historical summaries and future projections.

  • These are map products depicting modeled treeline dynamics. The left panel indicates modeled treeline dynamics from a single 2014 baseline year to the year 2100. The right panel indicates basal area accumulation on a 1km x 1km pixel basis during the year 2100, which gives an indication where possible further treeline advance may occur beyond 2100. The source datasets used to create these maps can be found here: https://catalog.snap.uaf.edu/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/53b35453-7b88-4ea7-8321-5447f8926c48 ALFRESCO is a landscape scale fire and vegetation dynamics model. These specific outputs are from the Integrated Ecosystem Model (IEM) project, and are from the linear coupled version using AR4/CMIP3 and AR5/CMIP5 climate inputs (IEM Generation 1a). These outputs include data from model rep 171(AR4/CMIP3) and rep 26(AR5/CMIP5), referred to as the “best rep” out of 200 replicates. The best rep was chosen through comparing ALFRESCO’s historical fire outputs to observed historical fire patterns. Single rep analysis is not recommended as a best practice, but can be used to visualize possible changes. The IEM Generation 1 is driven by outputs from 4 climate models, and two emission scenarios: AR4/CMIP3 SRES A1B CCCMA-CGCMS-3.1 MPI-ECHAM5 AR5/CMIP5 RCP 8.5 MRI-CGCM3 NCAR-CCSM4

  • This set of files includes downscaled historical estimates of monthly totals, and derived annual, seasonal, and decadal means of monthly total precipitation (in millimeters, no unit conversion necessary) from 1901 - 2006 (CRU TS 3.0) or 2009 (CRU TS 3.1) at 771 x 771 meter spatial resolution.