Predictive Climate Models Now Available for U.K. Energy Simulations

We know that the climate is changing, but until now architects have only been able to design based on

historical climate data. That has changed, at least in the UK, now that Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) and the University of Exeter have released, free of charge, weather files for 35 locations around the UK based on climate predictions 20, 40, and 70 years into the future. The files, part of Exeter’s Prometheus Weather Files Project were created using recent probabilistic projections of future climate. Designers have the choice of two versions for each location depending on what they see as the likely future for planetary carbon emissions: a “high emissions” and a “medium emissions” scenario. Outside the UK, options are more limited but expanding. The University of Southampton has a free tool called CCWorldWeatherGen that modifies current weather files for any location in the world based on predicted trends—but it uses older climate models than the IES/Exeter files. Elsewhere, research initiatives are under way to generate such future weather files. For more on how climate change should be factored into building design, see "Design for Adaptation: Living in a Climate-Changing World" in

EBN Sept. 2009. If you have updates on the status of such efforts, or comments on the usefulness of these predictive files, please comment.