Data, containing hydrological scenarios for the whole globe have been made available through OpenEarth. The principle of OpenEarth is to share datasets in a standard format, along with tools to read and manipulate them. As format, OpenEarth chose NetCDF, because it is free, open and can contain as much meta-data as the user requires. Furthermore, if NetCDF files are shared through a special web-protocal called 'OpenDAP', the user of the dataset can access the file along with its full contents, without having to download the entire file (which can be very large!!). Instead, the user can select only those parts of the data within the file that are of interest and download these (e.g. river discharge at specific locations).

The data, in the form of global maps with a resolution of 0.5 degrees are saved as one file per scenario per model. The provided parameters and model runs are provided below.

OpenEarth doesn't yet have a full search facility. Therefore the link to the files is provided below:
http://opendap.deltares.nl/thredds/catalog/opendap/deltares/FEWS-IPCC/catalog.html

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The following parameters are available:

Parameter

shortname

unit

Channel flow / accumulated discharge

QC

m3/s

Potential evaporation

ETP

m/day

Actual evaporation

EACT

m/day

All data is provided for the scenarios A1B, A2 (period 2081-2100) and the control experiment 20CM3 (period 1971-1990) for all twelve climate models listed below. For comparison a run based on the monthly quantities downscaled to daily values with the ERA-40 reanalysis dataset (van Beek et al, 2008) has been conducted as well.

Model

Institute

Country

shortname

BCM2.0

Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research

Norway

BCCR

CGCM3.1

Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis

Canada

CCCMA

CGCM2.3.2

Meteorological Research Institute

Japan

CGCM

CSIRO-Mk3.0

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization

Australia

CSIRO

ECHAM5

Max Planck Institute

Germany

ECHAM

ECHO-G

Freie Universität Berlin

Germany

ECHO

GFDL-CM2.1

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Centre

USA

GFDL

GISS-ER

Goddard institute for Space Studies

USA

GISS

IPSL-CM4

Institute Pierre Simon Laplace

France

IPSL

MIROC3.2med

Center of Climate System Research

Japan

MIROC

CCSM3

National Center for Atmospheric Research

USA

NCAR

HADGEM1

Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction

UK

HADGEM

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