In 2026, the current Austrian climate scenarios will be replaced by a new version – and these are set to be more than just a straightforward update. The scenarios, which are aligned with the new global climate scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will be expanded to include new parameters, and a special focus will also be placed on urban climate.

This was announced by Matthias Themeßl of GeoSphere Austria on Thursday at the Climate Day in Leoben. Project coordination is being carried out jointly with the Climate Change Centre Austria (CCCA). Two steps are required for the ÖKS26, as the provisional working title goes: the new IPCC climate data will first be downscaled from the global level to Europe by the European initiative EURO-CORDEX.

According to Themeßl, the result will then be a dataset with a resolution of ten to twelve kilometres. "We in Austria then carry out a further step in the form of a statistical bias correction, in which the regional simulations are combined with observational data from the past." After this "correction" of errors, a resolution of around one kilometre will once again be achieved at the end, as with the predecessor, which means that regional projections can already be made with a high degree of accuracy.

More on this at: science.orf.at