Frequently Asked Questions
On this page you can find some frequently asked questions about the CLIPC Platform and generic issues on climate changeclimate change
Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: 'a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods'. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributa.
CLIPC Platform
- What is CLIPC?
- Who is partner of the CLIPC Platform?
- What is the climate impactclimate impact
See Impact Assessment indicator toolkit? - How to use the impact indicator toolkit
-> How to compare the selected datasets or metadatametadata
Information about meteorological and climatological data concerning how and when they were measured, their quality, known problems and other characteristics. in this toolkit?
-> How to combine the datasets into a third dataset? - MyCLIPC data processing wizard (in development)
Climate Change
- What is Climate? (WMO)
- What is the Climate System? (WMO)
- How does the climate system works?
- What is Climate Variability? (WMO)
- What is Climate Change? (WMO)
- What is the difference between Climate Variability and Climate Change? (WMO)
- Climate Change General Issues provided by the IPCC (pdf, 7.2 MB)
Climate Models
- What are Regional and Global Climate Models?
- What are Climate Scenarios?
- What are Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) ScenariosScenarios
Scenarios can be thought of as stories of possible futures. They allow the description of factors that are difficult to quantify. In the context of climate change scenarios are used for the future development of factors such as governance, social structures, future population growth, technical development and agriculture. These descriptions are essential to model the future climate.? (IPCC) - What are Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) (IIASA)
- What is downscalingdownscaling
Downscaling is a method that derives local- to regional-scale (10 to 100 km) information from larger-scale models or data analyses. Two main methods exist: dynamical downscaling and empirical/statistical downscaling. The dynamical method uses the output of regional climate models, global models with variable spatial resolution or high-resolution global models. The empirical/statistical methods develop statistical relationships that link the large-scale atmospheric variables with local/regional climate variables. In all cases, the quality of the driving model remains an important limitation on the quality of the downscaled information.? - What are Climate Model Data?
- What are Climate Indices?
- What kind of common mistakes occur when using climate change data? An example from Climate Service in Australia
Miscellaneous
- Uncertainty Handbook (from SWICCA project via Climateoutreach.org)
- IPCC: Good Practice Guidance Paper on Assessing and Combining Multi Model Climate Projections
- WMO: Guide to Climatological Practices
Go further to:
- What is CLIPC?
- Climate Impact themes
- Behind the data
- Use Cases
- Documentation
- Glossary
- Use of vocabularies
- Links