VEMAP 2: U.S. Climate Change Projections

The conterminous United States is covered by this dataset of transient climate change scenarios from 1994 to approximately 2100. It contains annual projections for variables including total incident solar radiation, minimum and maximum temperature, vapor pressure, precipitation, relative humidity, and mean monthly irradiance. These scenarios were derived from coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) from the Canadian Climate Center and the Hadley Centre to drive ecological models for the U.S. National Assessment.

Use Cases

• Comparing biogeochemical model responses to transient climate forcings based on projected temperature and precipitation.
• Creating a continuous climate series from 1895 to 2100 by concatenating with the VEMAP 2: U.S. Annual Climate, 1895-1993 dataset.
• Analyzing long-term trends and decadal variability patterns like ENSO in future climate scenarios.
• Driving coupled biogeochemical-biogeographical models with time-dependent changes in surface climate variables.

Strengths

• Scenarios are derived from two major AOGCM transient experiments (CCC and HADCM2), providing a multi-model perspective.
• Designed for integration, creating a continuous climate series covering over 200 years (1895-2100).
• Variables include key drivers for ecosystem models, such as solar radiation, temperature extremes, and humidity.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided on any platform.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without details, requiring user confirmation.
• Data freshness is unclear; the last platform update date is in 2026, which may be a placeholder or error.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NCAR VEMAP Data Group, with data accessed via the Climate Impacts LINK Project, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia.

Collection Method

Derived from transient greenhouse gas experiments with sulfate aerosols from coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs).

Time Range

1994 to approximately 2100 (designed to be concatenated with 1895-1993 data).

Freshness

2026-04-12 17:56:37.506577

Geography

Conterminous United States.