Rebecca Maloney
Americas Press Office ,Boston
Developed by Arup and Argos Analytics, WeatherShiftTM now includes future rainfall, not just future temperatures.
Arup has partnered with Argos Analytics, LLC to expand the WeatherShift™ toolset, originally announced May 2014. The WeatherShift™ toolset takes projections from multiple global climate models and “shifts” present day weather files based on those projections. This can be used in design to test an urban or building environment for performance in a predicted future climate.
The expanded WeatherShift™ toolset now includes the ability to generate projected rainfall intensity, duration, and frequency (IDF) curves that reflect changes in the future climate. IDF curves are a key hydrological engineering tool in widespread use for applications ranging from sizing storm drains to estimating the risk of flooding in a watershed.
“"The investigation and use of climate projections for IDF curves in this project will be valuable for many as the methodology is shared and translated to other locations for climate preparedness and adaptation."Ann Kosmal, Convener of the GSA Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Team with the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings and the U.S. General Services Administration.
As the climate continues to warm, evaporation from the oceans is increasing, leading to larger amounts of moisture in the atmosphere. Climate scientists have concluded that this will result in more frequent and more extreme precipitation events, which are not accurately reflected in current IDF curves since they are based on historical rainfall data.
The expanded WeatherShift™ toolset provides both public and private sector entities additional capabilities for preparing the built environment to withstand the impacts resulting from changes in the climate that are well underway and that will continue to become more important.