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AdaptNSW

Accessing climate data on the NSW Climate Data Portal

Accessing climate data on the NSW Climate Data Portal

NSW Climate Data Portal launching soon

Until the NSW Climate Data Portal is launched, please experience NARCliM2.0 via our interactive climate change projections map or regional climate change snapshots.

Interactive projections map

What is the NSW Climate Data Portal?

The NSW Climate Data Portal (the Portal) is an online platform providing direct access for the public to high resolution climate model data for New South Wales and Australia.

Data available on the Portal are the output of the NSW and Australian Regional Climate Modelling (NARCliM) project. NARCliM data provides the most comprehensive and reliable view of our future with climate projections for multiple emissions scenarios.

The Portal was created to allow the public to browse and download this data for use in a range of technical applications to help the people of NSW better understand how, when and where we will experience the impacts of climate change.

Who is the NSW Climate Data Portal for?

The Portal supports end-users with knowledge of, and experience working with climate model data. Through the Portal our end-users can access, download, and apply climate model data, including climate projections, for their own specific and unique projects. Examples of this type of end-user are experts in climate impact research, risk and vulnerability assessment, and modelling for renewable energy, sustainable development, climate resilience programs, and community adaptation programs.

For end-users with limited experience working with climate models and climate projections, the resources on AdaptNSW provide simple, plain language interpretations and explanations of NARCliM data. These resources aim to assist households, businesses, local government, community, and not-for-profit organisations across NSW in adapting to a changing climate.

What does the NSW Climate Data Portal offer end-users?

The Portal allows our end-users the ability to search, filter, select and download NARCliM climate data, as well as view metadata, using common online portal tools. Data are downloaded in NetCDF format or can be exported to CSV and GeoTIFF file formats. The Portal also includes a user account, shopping cart (no charge) and packaging features, to allow users to retrieve data through an emailed link. Our end-users can select daily, monthly or seasonal data for individual ensemble members, i.e. individual regional climate model (RCM) simulations . The data available on the Portal is compliant with CORDEX (Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment) guidelines, including the standard and most-requested core variables.

End-users can begin to download data from the Portal once they have registered with a free account, which will also keep track of their selections and downloads. User accounts also assist the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (the Department) in identifying which data are of most interest to end-users, and for improving climate projection data services.

 

More experienced end-users can now download NARCliM2.0 data direct from the National Computational Infrastructure

National Computational Infrastructure

Publications

Climate modelling

Di Luca A, Argueso D, Evans JP, de Elia R and Laprise R 2016, Quantifying the overall added value of dynamical downscaling and the contribution from different spatial scales, Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, vol.121, pp.1575–1590, DOI:10.1002/2015JD024009.

Di Luca A, Evans JP and Ji F 2017, Australian snowpack in the NARCliM ensemble: evaluation, bias correction and future projections, Climate Dynamics, vol.51, pp.639–666, DOI:10.1007/s00382-017-3946-9. 

Di Luca A, Evans JP, Pepler A, Alexander LV and Argueso D 2016, Evaluating the representation of Australian east coast lows in a regional climate model ensemble, Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science, vol.66, pp.108–124.

Di Virgilio, G., Ji, F., Tam, E., Nishant, N., Evans, J. P., Thomas, C., et al.(2022). Selecting CMIP6 GCMs for CORDEX dynamical downscaling: Model performance, independence, and climate change signals. Earth's Future, 10, e2021EF002625. 

Di Virgilio G, Evans JP, Di Luca A, Grose MR, Round V and Thatcher M 2020, Realised added value in dynamical downscaling of Australian climate change, Climate Dynamics, vol.54, pp.4675–4692, DOI:10.1007/s00382-020-05250-1. 

Di Virgilio G, Evans JP, Di Luca A, Olson R, Argüeso D, Kala J, Andrys J, Hoffmann P, Katzfey JJ and Rockel B 2019, Evaluating reanalysis-driven CORDEX regional climate models over Australia: model performance and errors, Climate Dynamics, vol.53, pp.2985–3005, DOI:10.1007/s00382-019-04672-w. 

Di Virgilio, G., Evans, J., Ji, F., Tam, E., Kala, J., Andrys, J., Thomas, C., Choudhury, D., Rocha, C., White, S., Li, Y., El Rafei, M., Goyal, R., Riley, M., and Lingala, J.: Design, evaluation and future projections of the NARCliM2.0 CORDEX-CMIP6 Australasia regional climate ensemble, Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-87, in review, 2024.

Di Virgilio, G., Ji, F., Tam, E., Evans, J., Kala, J., Andrys, J., Thomas, C., Choudhury, D., Rocha, C., Li, Y., and Riley, M.: Evaluation of CORDEX ERA5-forced ‘NARCliM2.0’ regional climate models over Australia using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model version 4.1.2, Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2024-41, in review, 2024.

Duc HN, Ji F, Riley M, Herold N, Tam E, Downes S, Gross M, Beyer K, Nishant N, Azzi M and Miller J 2021, Evaluation of NARCliM1.5 regional climate model prediction of precipitation and temperature over eastern Australia, in 25th Clean Air and Environment Conference, Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand. (PDF 0.7MB) 

Evans JP, Di Virgilio G, Hirsch AL, Hoffmann P, Remedio AR, Ji F, Rockel B and Coppola E 2020, The CORDEX-Australasia ensemble: evaluation and future projections, Climate Dynamics, vol.57, pp.1385–1401, DOI: 10.1007/s00382-020-05459-0. 

Evans JP, Ekström M and Ji F 2012, Evaluating the performance of a WRF physics ensemble over south-east Australia, Climate Dynamics, vol.39, pp.1241–1258, DOI:10.1007/s00382-011-1244-5. 

Evans JP, Ji F, Abramowitz G and Ekström M 2013, Optimally choosing small ensemble members to produce robust climate simulations, Environmental Research Letters, vol.8, DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044050. 

Evans JP, Ji F, Lee C, Smith P, Argüeso D and Fita L 2014, Design of a regional climate modelling projection ensemble experiment – NARCliM, Geoscientific Model Development, vol.7, pp.621–629, DOI:10.5194/gmd-7-621-2014.

Fan Y, Olson R and Evans JP 2017, A Bayesian posterior predictive framework for weighting ensemble regional climate models, Geoscientific Model Development, vol.10, pp.2321–2332, DOI: 10.5194/gmd-10-2321-2017. 

Fita L, Evans JP, Argueso D, King AD and Liu Y 2016, Evaluation of the regional climate response in Australia to large-scale modes in the historical NARCliM simulations, Climate Dynamics, vol.49, pp. 2815–2829 DOI:10.1007/s00382-016-3484-x. 

Grose MR, Bhend J, Argueso D, Ekström M, Dowdy A, Hoffman P, Evans JP, Timbal B 2015, Comparison of various climate change projections of eastern Australian rainfall, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal, vol.65, pp.72–89.

Holgate C, Evans J, Dijk A, Pitman A and Virgilio G 2020, Australian precipitation recycling and evaporative source regions, Journal of Climate, vol.33, pp.1–40, DOI:10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0926.1. 

Ji F, Evans JP, Argueso D, Fita L and Di Luca A 2015, Using large-scale diagnostic quantities to investigate change in east coast lows, Climate Dynamics, vol.45, pp.2443–2453, DOI:10.1007/s00382-015-2481-9. 

Ji F, Evans JP, Di Luca A, Jiang N, Olson R, Fita L, Argüeso D, T-C Chang L, Scorgie Y, Riley M 2018, Projected change in characteristics of near surface temperature inversions for southeast Australia, Climate Dynamics, vol.52, pp.1487–1503, DOI:10.1007/s00382-018-4214-3. 

Ji F, Evans JP, Di Virgilio G, Nishant N, Di Luca A, Herold N, Downes SM, Tam E and Beyer K 2020, Projected changes in vertical temperature profiles for Australasia, Climate Dynamics, vol.55, pp.2453–2468, DOI: 10.1007/s00382-020-05392-2. 

Ji F, Evans JP, Ekström M and Teng J 2014, Evaluating rainfall patterns using physics scheme ensembles from a regional atmospheric model, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, vol.115, pp.297–304, DOI:10.1007/s00704-013-0904-2. 

Ji F, Evans JP, Teng J, Scorgie Y, Argueso D, Di Luca A and Olson R 2016, Evaluation of long-term precipitation and temperature WRF simulations for southeast Australia, Climate Research, vol.67, pp.99–115, DOI:10.3354/cr01366.  

Nishant N, Evans JP, Di Virgilio G, Downes S, Cheung KW, Tam E, Miller J, Beyer K and Riley M, Introducing NARCliM1.5: evaluating the performance of regional climate projections for southeast Australia for 1950-2100, Earth’s Future, vol.9, DOI: e2020EF001833. (PDF 5.2MB) 

Nishant N and Sherwood SC 2021, How strongly are mean and extreme precipitation coupled? Geophysical Research Letters, vol.48, DOI:e2020GL092075. 

Olson R, Evans JP, Di Luca A and Argueso D 2016, The NARCliM project: model agreement and significance of climate projections, Climate Research, vol.69, pp.209–227, DOI:10.3354/cr01403.

Olson R, Fan Y and Evans JP 2016, A simple method for Bayesian model averaging of regional climate model projections: application to south-east Australian temperatures, Geophysical Research Letters, vol.43, pp.7661─7669, DOI: 10.1002/2016GL069704. 

Pepler A, Alexander L and Evans JP 2016, Zonal winds and southeast Australian rainfall in climate models, Climate Dynamics, vol.46, pp.123–133, DOI:10.1007/s00382-015-2573-6. 

Climate extremes and natural hazards

Bao J, Sherwood S, Alexander L and Evans 2017, Future increases in extreme precipitation exceed observed scaling rates, Nature Climate Change, vol.7, pp.128–132, DOI:10.1038/nclimate3201. 

Cortés-Hernández VE, Zheng F, Evans JP, Lambert M, Sharma A, and Westra S 2015, Evaluating regional climate models for simulating sub-daily rainfall extremes, Climate Dynamics, vol.47, pp.1613–1628, DOI:10.1007/s00382-015-2923-4. 

Evans JP, Argueso D, Olson R and Di Luca A 2016, Bias-corrected regional climate projections of extreme rainfall in south-east Australia, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, vol.130, pp.1085–1098, DOI:10.1007/s00704-016-1949-9. 

Herold N, Downes SM, Gross MH, Ji F, Nishant N, Macadam I and Beyer K 2021, Projected changes in the frequency of climate extremes over southeast Australia. Environmental Research Communications, vol.3, 011001. 

Pepler AS, Di Luca A, Ji F, Alexander LV, Evans JP and Sherwood SC 2016, Projected changes in east Australian midlatitude cyclones during the 21st century, Geophysical Research Letters, vol.43, pp.334─340, DOI:10.1002/2015GL067267.

Perkins-Kirkpatrick S, White C, Alexander L, Argueso D, Boschat G, Cowan T, Evans JP, Ekstrom M, Oliver E, Phatak A and Purich A 2016, Natural hazards in Australia: heatwaves, Climatic Change, vol.139, pp.101–114, DOI:10.1007/s10584-016-1650-0. 

Walsh K, White CJ, McInnes K, Holmes J, Schuster S, Richter H, Evans JP, Di Luca A and Warren RA 2016, Natural hazards in Australia: storms, wind and hail, Climatic Change, vol.139, pp.55–67, DOI:10.1007/s10584-016-1737-7. 

Fire-related

Clarke H and Evans JP 2018, Exploring the future change space for fire weather in southeast Australia, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, vol.136, pp.513–527, DOI:10.1007/s00704-018-2507-4. 

Clarke H, Pitman AJ, Kala J, Carouge C, Haverd V and Evans JP 2016, An investigation of future fuel load and fire weather in Australia, Climatic Change, vol.139, pp.59–605, DOI:10.1007/s10584-016-1808-9. 

Di Virgilio, G., Evans, J. P., Blake, S. A. P., Armstrong, M., Dowdy, A. J., Sharples, J., & McRae, R. (2019). Climate change increases the potential for extreme wildfires. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 8517–8526.

Di Virgilio G, Evans JP, Clarke H, Sharples J, Hirsch AL and Hart MA 2020, Climate change significantly alters future wildfire mitigation opportunities in southeastern Australia, Geophysical Research Letters, vol.47, DOI:10.1029/2020GL088893. 

Sharples JJ, Cary G, Fox-Hughes P, Mooney S, Evans JP, Fletcher M, Fromm M, Baker P, Grierson P and McRae R 2016, Natural hazards in Australia: extreme bushfire, Climatic Change, vol.139, pp.85–99, DOI:10.1007/s10584-016-1811-1. 

Sector-specific

Evans JP, Kay M, Abhnil P and Pitman A 2017, The resilience of Australian wind energy to climate change, Environmental Research Letters, vol.13, DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/aaa632.

Gross MH, Alexander LV, Macadam I, Green D and Evans JP 2016, The representation of health-relevant heatwave characteristics in a regional climate model ensemble for New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Australia, International Journal of Climatology, vol.37, pp.1195─1210, DOI:10.1002/joc.4769. 

Herold N, Ekstrom M, Kala J, Goldie J and Evans JP 2018, Australian climate extremes in the 21st century according to a regional climate model ensemble: implications for health and agriculture, Weather and Climate Extremes, vol.20, pp.54–68, DOI:10.1016/j.wace.2018.01.001. 

Macadam I, Argüeso D, Evans PJ, Liu DL, Pitman AJ 2016, The effect of bias correction and climate model resolution on wheat simulations forced with a regional climate model ensemble, International Journal of Climatology, vol.36, pp.4577–4591, DOI:10.1002/joc.4653. 

Contact Us

If you require more information about the NSW and Australian Regional Climate Modelling (NARCliM) project, please email: [email protected]. 

For climate change adaptation enquiries, please email: [email protected].

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