EPA Dynamically Downscaled Ensemble (EDDE): U.S. Climate Projections at 36km Resolution

EDDE Version 1 is a physics-based modeled dataset representing 3D atmospheric conditions for the contiguous United States at a horizontal grid spacing of 36 kilometers. The data includes hourly increments for historical periods (1975-2005, 1995-2005) and future scenarios (2025-2100) under RCP 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5, dynamically downscaled from CESM and GFDL CM3 global models using the WRF model. It is produced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and stored in CF-compliant netCDF 4 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing regional climate change impacts based on dynamically downscaled high-resolution atmospheric data.
• Modeling future air quality and pollutant dispersion based on 3D atmospheric condition projections.
• Studying extreme weather event frequency and intensity under mid- and high-emission scenarios.
• Validating other climate models or downscaling techniques based on the ensemble approach from multiple GCMs.
• Assessing climate risks for sectors like agriculture, water resources, and public health based on scenario-based projections.

Strengths

• Data is dynamically downscaled to a 36-kilometer grid, providing higher spatial resolution than typical global models.
• Includes an ensemble from multiple global climate models (CESM and GFDL CM3) under different CMIP5 scenarios.
• Files are self-describing netCDF 4 format with CF compliance, enhancing interoperability.
• Covers a long temporal range, including historical periods and future projections up to 2100.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred from netCDF headers after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for some applications.
• Spatial coverage is limited to the contiguous United States.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Collection Method

Physics-based modeling using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to dynamically downscale global climate models.

Time Range

Historical: 1975-2005, 1995-2005. Future: 2025-2100 under RCP 4.5, 2025-2055 under RCP 6.0, and RCP 8.5.

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Contiguous United States