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The USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Center announced in late July the availability of a new statistically downscaled climate model dataset covering the conterminous U.S. at 4 km resolution. The dataset is downloadable from the USGS GeoData Portal. The GeoData portal houses large datasets, such as data from climate downscaling efforts, so that interested parties can access and process the information for additional analyses. This dataset named “MACAv2-METDATA” contains daily downscaled meteorological and hydrological projections for the conterminous U.S. at 4-km resolution. The dataset includes the following variables:

  1. Maximum & minimum temperature;

  2. Precipitation amount;

  3. Maximum & minimum relative humidity;

  4. Specific humidity;

  5. Downward shortwave solar radiation; and

  6. Eastward & northward wind.

USGS says the dataset “represents an important step towards predicting future climate scenarios in the U.S. at scales that are important to resource managers.”