NARCliM climate projections

What is NARCliM?

The New South Wales and Australian Regional Climate Modelling (NARCliM) project develops high-resolution regional climate projections that cover NSW and South-eastern Australia at a higher resolution and the Australasian continent and beyond at a lower resolution (named the NARCliM and CORDEX domains, respectively). Computer modelled climate projections are the best information we have available on our future climate. NARCliM has been designed to help government, industry and community in NSW and Australia plan for our future with robust regional and local scale data. The NARCliM project uses currently available global climate models (GCM) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios from the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) used in the IPCC reports and applies regional dynamical downscaling using the latest Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). NARCliM generates critical climate indices for a broad range of applications and climate change adaptation and risk analysis. The NARCliM project is led by the NSW Government with support from the ACT, South Australian, Victorian, and Western Australian governments, National Computational Infrastructure, Murdoch University and the University of New South Wales.

NARCliM releases NARCliM2.0 was released in August 2024. It is the most detailed regional climate projections available in Australia to date at 4km for South-eastern Australia and 20km scale for Australasia. We recommend using NARCliM2.0 as it is the most current generation, benefitting from several design and technical enhancements. NARCliM2.0 simulates the climate using five CMIP6 GCMs and two RCMs with continuous data from 1950 to 2100. The current release includes two GHG scenarios - SSP1-2.6 and SSP3-7.0, with a third scenario, SSP2-4.5, available in 2025. NARCliM2.0 has been designed to WCRP-CORDEX standards and provides users with state-of-the-art climate projections for Australia.

NARCliM1.0 was released in 2014. It contains simulations from four CMIP3 GCMs and three regional climate models (RCM) using WRF3.3 for one future GHG scenario (SRES A2). Time periods included are 1990 to 2009, 2020 to 2039 and 2060 to 2079, with a grid resolution of 10km for South-eastern Australia (NARCliM domain) nested within a 50km grid for Australasia (CORDEX domain). NARCliM1.0 data has been used for a range of NSW climate adaptation and impact studies and climate change visualisations.

An enhanced set of climate projections (NARCliM1.5) were released in 2020. NARCliM1.5 contains simulations from three CMIP5 GCMs and two RCMs and two GHG scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). The simulated time period is continuous from 1951 to 2100. NARCliM1.5 has the same grid resolution as NARCliM1.0 – a 10km grid nested within a 50km grid, and is useful for analysis of climate extremes, impact thresholds and stress testing.

Each generation of NARCliM is based on best available climate modelling and scenarios at the time of release. Consequently, there are expected differences between projections/results of the modelling but there are mostly similarities in trends (across NSW and over time).

For more information on NARCliM generations, please visit the AdaptNSW website (https://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/narclim/using-narclim-data/narclim-generations-and-parameters).

Model output

NARCliM climate projections data will be available on the NSW Climate Data Portal (https://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/climate-data-portal), when the Portal is released in late 2024. The data is also currently available at the National Computational Infrastructure at ANU (https://nci.org.au/). The Climate Data Portal will provide users access to NARCliM's most frequently used "core variables" at daily and monthly frequencies. Additionally, the Interactive climate change projections map (https://www.climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/projections-map) on AdaptNSW website provide translated climate data to a broad audience of users. For more information, contact us through the NARCliM Mailbox, narclim@environment.nsw.gov.au.