20 and 30 year climatologies from CMIP3 climate model output as used in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)

Climatology data used in Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (CMIP3) model output.

Simulations of global climate models were run by various climate modelling groups coordinated by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) on behalf of the IPCC.

Climatology data was calculated from global climate model simulations of experiments representative of Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) scenarios: A1b, A2, B1, the commitment scenario experiment (COMMIT), the twentieth century experiment (20C3M), the pre-industrial control (PICTL) and the idealised experiments 1PCTO2X and 1PCTO4X.

The AR4 climatologies are 20-year period averages. 30-year period averages have also been calculated for comparison with the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR). The monthly climatology data covers the period from 1850-2100. The climatologies are of global scope and are provided on latitude-longitude grids.

The period averages are:

20x: 20-year averages [+20-39, +46-65, +80-99, +180-199] as used in chapter 10 of IPCC 2007,

30a: 30-year averages [+01-30, +31-60, +61-90] as used in the observed climatologies,

30b: 30-year averages [+10-39, +40-69, +70-99] for compatibility with the IPCC 3rd Assessment Report (TAR).

The climatology period averages listed above are relative to AD2000 for SRES scenarios A1B, A2, B1, and the commitment scenario COMMIT, relative to AD1900 for the twentieth century run (20C3M) and relative to the start of the experiment for the pre-industrial control (PICTL) and the 1PCTO2X and 1PCTO4X runs.

Data files are 'tar' files with names of the form [model]_[experiment]_[variable]_{climatology}.tar.

The experiments in this dataset include the SRES future scenarios:

A1B Globalisation with rapid economic growth,

A2 Regionalisation with regionally oriented economic development,

B1 Globalisation with global environmental sustainability.

Also:

COMMIT simulation of climate change we are committed to given the current loading of greenhouse gasses and zero future emissions.

PICTL the pre-industrial control.

20C3M the 20th century climate simulaiton.

1PTO2X and 1PTO4X idealised simulaitons where the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is increased by 1 percent per year from pre-industrial concentration until reaching 2x and 4x the original concentration.

The dataset is comprised of monthly mean surface data for the following atmospheric variables:

specific humidity,

precipitation flux,

air pressure at sea level,

surface downwelling shortwave flux in air,

air temperature,

air temperature daily max,

air temperature daily min,

eastward wind,

northward wind.

Date (Publication): 2021-06-01T20:39:47

Date (Creation): 2021-06-01T20:39:47

Citation identifier: https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/e6edf4076e7e42f681f495ccf0ec22cb

Citation identifier: Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) / e6edf4076e7e42f681f495ccf0ec22cb

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Unavailable	Solomon, Susan	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Qin, Dahe	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Manning, Martin	Unavailable	Author
Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA)		support@ceda.ac.uk	Custodian
Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA)		support@ceda.ac.uk	Owner
Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA)		support@ceda.ac.uk	Distributor
Unavailable	Manning, Martin	Unavailable	Principal investigator
Unavailable	Qin, Dahe	Unavailable	Principal investigator
Unavailable	Solomon, Susan	Unavailable	Principal investigator
Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA)		support@ceda.ac.uk	pointofContact
Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA)		support@ceda.ac.uk	Publisher

Maintenance and update frequency: Unknown

Update scope: Dataset

Keywords

IPCC
DDC
AR4
CMIP3
SRES
COMMIT
PICTL
20C3M
1PCTO2X
1PCTO4X
Climate Change

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

atmospheric conditions

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Public data: access to these data is available to both registered and non-registered users.

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Under the following licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, appropriate use of these data may fall under any use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.

Spatial representation type: Grid

Language: English

Topic category

Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere

Begin date: 1850-01-01T00:00:00

End date: 2100-12-31T23:59:59

Unique resource identifier: WGS 84

Distribution format

Name	Version
netcdf

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA)		support@ceda.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/e6edf4076e7e42f681f495ccf0ec22cb	CEDA Data Catalogue Page

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/ipcc-ddc/data/netcdf/ar4_v2	DOWNLOAD

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/model_documentation/ipcc_model_documentation.html	CMIP3 Climate Model Documentation

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/spm/sres-en.pdf	Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES)

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar4/	Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Statement: Climatology data calculated from global climate model simulations for a variety of experiments from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (CMIP3).

Metadata

File identifier: e6edf4076e7e42f681f495ccf0ec22cb XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Parent identifier: Model output described in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), 20 and 30 year climatologies
3a9c171d7f1c4441ba8ffb9c2c22b81e

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2026-02-08T03:17:52

Metadata standard name: UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version: 2.3

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA)		support@ceda.ac.uk	Point of contact

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