Providing Regional Climates for Impact Studies (PRECIS)

Modelling system that generates high-resolution climate information for climate change scenarios

Policy stages:

PRECIS is a regional climate modelling system developed by the Hadley Centre at the UK Met Office. It was designed with the intention of being a free resource for scientists in developing countries. PRECIS has been used to assist the development of climate change scenarios in regions around the world, whilst utilising existing climate expertise and improving domestic capacity. Regional climate models (RCMs) are integral to adaptation planning - as they add detailed information to the large scale predictions made by General Circulation Models, helping to provide a more accurate representation of surface features. Information acquired from the use of RCMs, like PRECIS, is essential if countries are to adequately assess their vulnerability to climate change and plan adaptive measures. The tool is accompanied by an online handbook and technical manual which can be downloaded from the PRECIS website. Protocol dictates that in order to receive the tool, attendance is required at one of the PRECIS workshops held in different locations around the world. It runs on a Linux based PC and has been developed with a user-friendly interface.

Requirements

Training:

3-5 days
No costs to developing countries for training/workshops, but travel & accommodation are not provided when workshops take place. Annex 2 country institutes are charged a €5,000 fee to attend workshops plus associated costs.

Costs:

Using the tool: None

Time needed:

A typical experiment, covering a 100-by-100 grid box domain and including a representation of the atmospheric sulphur-cycle, run on one core processor, takes 2.5 months to complete a 30-year simulation.