VEMAP 2: U.S. Monthly Climate Projections to 2100

VEMAP Phase 2 provides transient climate change scenarios for the conterminous United States from 1994 to approximately 2100. These monthly projections are based on coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model experiments from the Canadian Climate Center and the Hadley Centre. The dataset is designed to be concatenated with historical climate data to create a continuous series from 1895 onward for modeling ecological responses.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term ecological trends based on projected changes in temperature and precipitation.
• Analyzing changes in multiyear to decadal climate variability patterns, such as ENSO.
• Driving coupled biogeochemical-biogeographical models with transient climate forcings.
• Conducting a U.S. National Assessment of climate change impacts using concatenated historical and future data.

Strengths

• Provides a continuous monthly climate series from 1895 to ~2100 when combined with the VEMAP 2 historical dataset.
• Scenarios reflect both long-term trends and changes in multiyear to decadal variability from two major AOGCMs (CCC and HADCM2).
• Includes multiple key climate variables: solar radiation, min/max temperature, vapor pressure, precipitation, 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', requiring users to confer with the data group for proper use.
• Dataset freshness is unclear; the 'last updated' dates are in the future (2026), suggesting possible metadata errors.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NCAR VEMAP Data Group, derived from CCC and Hadley Centre AOGCM experiments accessed via the Climate Impacts LINK Project.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

January 1994 to approximately 2100

Freshness

2026-04-12 17:56:37.506577

Geography

Conterminous United States