A daily time-step observed and scenario climate dataset on a European grid for crop modelling applications

Abstract

This paper describes a daily time-step observed and scenario climate dataset on a European grid with 25 km x 25 km spatial resolution. The dataset was developed for crop modelling applications in the MACSUR project. The dataset covers the period 1980-2010 for observations; this is, for a baseline period of 1981-2010 and the year 1980 for crop model simulations with sowing dates in the autumn. It also covers the periods 2040-2069 and 2070-2099 for 5 Global Climate Models (GCMs) x 2 forcing scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) and 2 GCMs with RCP2.6. The Joint Research Centre's (JRC) Agri4Cast gridded dataset was used for the baseline. The scenarios have been calculated using an enhanced delta change method that applies changes in aspects of temperature and precipitation variability in addition to changes in mean climate.