For land use planning and management of natural resources, information is needed about what we expect our climate to be in the foreseeable future. This information should be available at a very high spatial quality dedicated to regional scales. Only then information becomes relevant to the local user. Climate modellers produce climate scenarios continuously, but this information is often only incidentally used by policy makers and other stakeholders. A communication platform will be established to develop climate scenarios that are tailor made to users involved in mitigation activities and developing adaptation strategies.

Climate scenario's are consistent and plausible descriptions of a possible future climate. They contain information about changes in weather due to global climatic changes; for example changing temperature, precipitation and wind direction. Climate scenario's are not long term weather forecasts. They can predict future;average weather and chances for extreme weather conditions. The climate scenario's are meant to enable companies, government and individuals to anticipate to these effects.

Results Climate Scenario's projects

North Atlantic Ocean Monitoring and Modelling – CS01
Via the Global Climate Observing Program (GCOS), this project does observations to the North Atlantic component of the thermohaline circulation. The result is a recognizable Dutch contribution to an international effort, for example via the World Climate Research
Program (WCRP) CLImate VARiability (CLIVAR). This effort will improve climate models by decreasing the uncertainty ranges in these models results. Download the synthesis or a paper about ocean temperatures.
contant | publications | factsheet

The CESAR Observatory climate monitoring and process
studies – CS02
This project provides the continuation if the Cabauw Experimental Site
for Atmospheric Research (CESAR) measuring programme. Among other data, CESAR provides information about aerosols and clouds (CESAR Observatory). This information can be implemented in weather and climate models and will  therefore lead to important improvements in climate scenario’s. Also, another method of precipitation measurement is under development. Read more.
contact | publications | factsheet

Representation of soil moisture and root water uptake in
climate models – CS03
This project has researched soil vegetation - athmosphere processes in climate models. A detailed ecohydrologic model has been used to order vegetation and soil factors in term of importance for modeling evaporation. The soil model HTESSEL has been tested in an area where the regional climate model RACMO systematically shows too low evaporation and high air temperatures values. Download the synthesis.
contact | publications | factsheet

The regional climate impact of aerosols – CS04
Within this project improvements have been made for regional climate models by researching the indirect effect of aerosols. The data and knowledge about aerosols are used to develop a module in the new climate model RACMO2. Eventually the results of this project will be used in international research, which will try to quantify the role of aerosols in climate and air pollution. Read more about aerosols in this article.
contact | publications | factsheet

Remote influences on European climate - CS05
Changes in the wind climate across Europe in relation to the warming of tropical oceans have been surveyed in recent simulations with various climate models. The research investigated how the uncertainties in the warming of tropical oceans affect uncertainties in the expected future climate in Europe. Various extreme events were selected from a large set of existing simulations and were run through a regional model with a higher level of spatial detail. Furthermore, an improved method for extreme weather statistics has been developed.
contact | publications | factsheet

Refinement and application of a regional atmospheric model
for climate scenario calculations of Western Europe – CS06
The production of base climate scenario’s in service of other (CcSP-) projects is done within this project. The front office of this project is via the ‘Tailoring’ project, wherein the data is processed and customized. Also, the regional climate model offers the possibility to test improvements of parameterizations. Have a look at KNMI course material or a scientific paper.
contact | publications | factsheet

Tailoring climate information for impact assessment – CS07
This project is the interface between the production of climate information and the user. In the project climate information is tailored so it can be used in practice. Climate scenario’s are tailored for six case studies, where the KNMI’06 climate scenario’s are used as a blueprint. The project is the front office of the CS theme and will run until the end of the CcSP programme, to ensure good communication between model developers and end users.
contact | publications | factsheet

Time series information - CS08
For purposes of validating climate scenarios, defining a reference climate and impact studies this project had digitized and analyzed historic time series of climate variables. Products from this project are precipitation series from 1700-1850 and 1850-2000 which are unique worldwide and publically accessible. The automated digitizing method (scanning and processing pluviograph data) is an innovation which can be used by
other meteorological organisations.
contact | publications | factsheet

Modeling and reconstructing precipitation and flood frequency
in the Meuse catchment during the late Holocene – CS09
CS09 attempted to reconstruct paleo precipitation series and flood fre-quencies of the Meuse river. Quantitative reconstruction based on freshwater mussels or fen moss appears to be complex. Fen moss can determine moisture conditions qualitatively. Furthermore, historic floods are detectable in the Meuse sediment. In addition, the (significant) role
of land use for flooding has been determined using model simulation.
contact | publications | factsheet

Objectives

• Uncovering the role of vital atmospheric processes in shaping our climate and improvement of measurements of vital climate parameters (prototype monitoring)
• Production of climate scenarios and time series relevant for spatial planning
• Assessing the future by mining the past climate (paleoclimatology)
• Tailoring climate information for end users in a participatory way 

Projects

• CS1 – North Atlantic Ocean monitoring and modellering
• CS2 - The CESAR Observatory: climate monitoring and process studies
• CS3 - Representation of soil moisture and root water uptake in climate models
• CS4 - The regional climate impact of aerosols
• CS5 - Remote influences on European climate
• CS6 - Refinement and application of a regional atmospheric model for climate scenario calculation of Western Europe
• CS7 - Tailoring climate information for impact assessment
• CS8 - Time series information
• CS9 - Modelling and reconstructing precipitation and flood frequency in the Meuse catchment during the late Holocene

Look at the Project Overview for a detailed description