Development and Evaluation of a High Resolution Historical Climate Dataset over California
Improving the spatial (to 2 km) and temporal (to hourly) resolution of historical climate data needed for natural gas sector resilience planning.
The Regents of California, San Diego
Recipient
La Jolla, CA
Recipient Location
38th
Senate District
77th
Assembly District
$1,277,295
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
The project has run simulations over 5 selected case study areas to consider cloudiness, Santa Ana winds, heat wave(s), and atmospheric rivers. These simulations were evaluated to determine which combinations of runs perform best in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model as compared to historical observations of conditions across seasons, anomalous climate patterns, and extreme weather situations. The project team determined that the supercomputing performance of COMET is acceptable and will continue to utilize this supercomputer. This is helpful as outside funding has been acquired making it possible to generate the dynamical weather/climate events beyond California, covering most of the western United States. This expansion will be beneficial for the state to understand co-occurring extremes and sequences of hazardous events that occur outside of the state but which do impact gas system reliability or prices. Currently, the dynamical model simulations are producing 6km and 2km downscaling results covering October 2012-2023. Additional years will be downscaled once the first 11 years are completed.
The Issue
The gas sector, other utilities, and numerous other stakeholders in the state need more spatially and temporally detailed historical climate, weather, and hydrological data to assess resilience to present and future climate changes and to conduct operations and planning. Of importance is the makeup of extreme events, which may derive from sequences of occurrences, and can manifest as compound multi-variate hazards. The fine-scale data required from recent decades of time history in California and its surrounding region to fully evaluate and prepare for co-occurring extremes and sequences of hazardous events have not previously been assembled. Sources of historical climate trends must be understood, as this bears on how such trends continue into the future and how California's gas investor-owned utilities (IOUs) will need to plan for reliability as the state decarbonizes.
Project Innovation
The project is improving the spatial (to 2 kilometers) and temporal (to hourly) resolution of historical (last four decades going back to the early 1980s) climate data covering all of California and surrounding regions. This historical high resolution weather and climate data is needed by the gas IIOUs, along with a broader set of stakeholders in California to provide better information to assess the risk of compound climate events, stress test the California utility and other systems using the historical baseline from which to gauge projected future conditions, and assess the resiliency of the system in the face of long-term trends combined with shorter-term extremes.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
Improvement in spatial and temporal resolution of historical climate data will enable California's gas IOUs and other stakeholders to assess compound climate events at scales that are more specific to the California utility and other gas systems. This will enable more detailed stress tests that use the historical baseline to gauge projected future conditions. Additionally, resiliency assessment of the systems can be done at improved resolutions (time and space) and details while taking into account the long-term trends combined with the short-term extremes.
Reliability
The project benefits include reliability by developing improved meteorological and hydrological datasets. By providing additional detail of the potential exposure to climate-related weather hazards at scales that are relevant to the gas system, these datasets will support IOUs in carrying out stress tests on the gas system and in developing guidelines and strategies that improve performance and resilience.
Safety
By providing additional detail in time and scale of the potential impacts of climate related hazards on the gas system, this project supports IOUs in examining performance of components of the gas system infrastructure, leading to strategies to improve performance and safety of the gas system.
Energy Security
By providing additional detail in time and scale of the potential impacts of climate, this information is expected to support improved energy system planning and avoidance of negative impacts due to climate and weather hazards, thus improving energy security.
Reliability
Improved, high resolution climate and weather history over California and the surrounding region provides better information for system planning and avoidance of hazardous impacts, thus potentially helping to promote improved reliability of energy systems' performance.
Key Project Members
Daniel Cayan
Subrecipients
Portland State University
Desert Research Institute
