The south-central U.S. has a unique and complex topography that results in a strong precipitation gradient from the arid west to the humid east. Stakeholders and partners of the South Central CASC require climate projections about how these conditions may change to provide critical information for impact assessments and climate adaptation planning efforts related to their unique needs. For example, stakeholders and partners of the South Central CASC have identified a critical need for guidance about future water scarcity and wildfire frequency. While the South Central CASC has already produced climate projections for this region, a new generation of climate models that represent an updated scientific understanding of climate change is now available.
This project will create a new generation of climate projections using state-of-the-art climate models to meet the unique needs of the South Central CASC region. To support SC CASC stakeholders engaged in climate adaptation planning, this project will also create new guidance and visualization documents, and resulting climate projection datasets will be provided directly to regional partners engaged in actionable science projects.
New climate projections resulting from this work will provide a foundation for actionable science that can improve climate resilience and climate change adaptation efforts across the South Central CASC region.