Water Utility Climate Alliance
Understanding Climate Modeling and Uncertainty
Understanding climate modeling and uncertainty is crucial for making informed decisions to plan for a range of potential climate futures and impacts. The resources are WUCA products that provide valuable insights and practical tools to help navigate this complex field so you can feel better prepared to access and interpret climate modeling results, assess their uncertainties effectively, and develop a concrete strategy for utilizing climate modeling results to guide utility decisions.
CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 6) is the most recent organized international "roundup" of global climate projections from several dozen climate models. This resource for water managers provides a dozen or so highly relevant questions — and clear responses — to aid in the use and interpretation of CMIP6 datasets
There are a wide variety of downscaling methods in use, and while most reproduce the historical climate accurately, there can be significant differences in projected climate change. This document highlights differences between three downscaling methods.
Accurately modeling evapotranspiration, which is directly related to temperature, is crucial to adequately capture the impact of warming on streamflow. This document illustrates the impact of recent changes to representation of vegetation over the Western U.S.
Wastewater and stormwater utilities must consider how to adapt to changing performance standards, regulatory drivers, and flooding impacts as extreme storms become more intense and back-to-back or compound events become more frequent under a warming climate.
