This README.txt file was generated on 20260211 by Stefan Liess (liess@umn.edu)


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GENERAL INFORMATION
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1. Title of Dataset 
   Dynamically downscaled CMIP6 climate projections for Minnesota

2. Author Information
   Stefan Liess, Heidi A. Roop, Tracy E. Twine, Suzanna Clark, Dena Coffman, Dhondup Dolma,  Amanda Farris, Alejandro Fernandez, Jack Gorman, Nathan Meyer

  Main Contact Information
           Name: Stefan Liess
           Institution: University of Minnesota
           Address: 1991 Upper Buford Circle, Saint Paul, MN 55108, USA
           Email: liess@umn.edu
	   ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3544-8505

  Principal Investigator Contact Information
        Name: Heidi A. Roop
           Institution: University of Minnesota
           Email: hroop@umn.edu

  Principal Investigator Contact Information
        Name: Tracy E. Twine
           Institution: University of Minnesota
           Email: twine@umn.edu

3. Dates of data:
   Daily data for historical 1995-2014, future 2040-2059, 2060-2079, and 2080-2099 time periods for SSP245, SSP370, and SSP585 scenarios.

4. Geographic location of data: 
   Minnesota and surrounding counties between  42.2795N, 99.05373W, and 50.8486N 87.33721W

5. Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data:

   Heidi A. Roop, Tracy E. Twine:
   State of Minnesota
   Grant Number: M.L. 2021, Chp. 4,Sec. 3, Subd. 4

   Heidi A. Roop:
   State of Minnesota
   Grant Number: M.L. 2023, Chp. 60,Sec. 8   


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SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION
-------------------------- 


1. Licenses/restrictions placed on the data: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

2. Links to publications that cite or use the data:
   https://climate.umn.edu/MN-CliMAT
   https://doi.org/10.1029/2025WR040415

3. Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data:
   https://climate.umn.edu/MN-CliMAT

4. Links/relationships to ancillary data sets:
   https://prism.oregonstate.edu and https://doi.org/10.5067/0GGPB220EX6A 
   (used for bias adjustment)

After we finished our simulations, we compared temperature and precipitation to observations from  https://prism.oregonstate.edu and we compared snow depth to data from https://doi.org/10.5067/0GGPB220EX6A . Then we added a bias adjusted version of our simulations (same name as the original variable, just with _biasadju added to the variable name) to our dataset. whereby we adjusted all future projections with the same bias that we detected for the historical simulation.


5. Was data derived from another source?
           If yes, list source(s): https://aims2.llnl.gov/search
 These data are the global climate projections that we used as input data for our simulations.


6. Recommended citation for the data:

Stefan Liess, Heidi A. Roop, Tracy E. Twine, Suzanna Clark, Dena Coffman, Dhondup Dolma,  Amanda Farris, Alejandro Fernandez, Jack Gorman, Nathan Meyer (2026). Dynamically downscaled CMIP6 climate projection data for Minnesota. https://climate.umn.edu/MN-CliMAT.


---------------------
DATA & FILE OVERVIEW
---------------------

The ten folders contain six files each in netCDF format (one per input CMIP6 model) of monthly mean model output dynamically downscaled with the WRF regional model (Skamarock et al. 2021) over the 20-year periods historical_1995-2014, ssp245_2040-2059, ssp245_2060-2079, ssp245_2080-2099, ssp370_2040-2059, ssp370_2060-2079, ssp370_2080-2099, ssp585_2040-2059, ssp585_2060-2079, and ssp585_2080-2099.
File names are structured as follows: <scenario>_<time period>_<CMIP6 model>_monthly.nc
(example: historical_1995-2014_BCC-CSM2-MR_monthly.nc)
More information on the scenarios can be found in Riahi et al. (2017), and the downscaling results are summarized in Liess et al. (2026).

Liess, S., H. A. Roop, T. E. Twine, S. Clark, D. Coffman, D. Dolma, A. Farris, A. Fernandez, J. Gorman, N. Meyer (2026). County-scale climate projections over Minnesota and the effects of lakes. Water Resources Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025WR040415

Riahi, K., van Vuuren, D. P., Kriegler, E., Edmonds, J., O’Neill, B. C., Fujimori, S., Bauer, N., Calvin, K., Dellink, R., Fricko, O., Lutz, W., Popp, A., Cuaresma, J. C., Kc, S., Leimbach, M., Jiang, L., Kram, T., Rao, S., Emmerling, J., ..., Tavoni, M. (2017). The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview. Global Environmental Change, 42, 153–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.009

Skamarock, W. C., Klemp, B., Dudhia, J., Gill, O., Liu, Z., Berner, J., Wang, W., Powers, G., Duda, G., Barker, D. M., & Huang, X. (2021). A Description of the Advanced Research WRF Model Version 4.3. No. NCAR/TN-556+STR. https://doi.org/10.5065/1dfh-6p97


1. File List
Below is an excerpt from the command ncdump -h historical_1995-2014_BCC-CSM2-MR_monthly.nc, that contains information on dimensions and variables in the netcdf files. 


netcdf historical_1995-2014_BCC-CSM2-MR_monthly {
dimensions:
	time = UNLIMITED ; // (240 currently)
	bnds = 2 ;
	lon = 225 ;
	lat = 240 ;
	soil_layers = 4 ;
variables:
	double time(time) ;
		time:standard_name = "time" ;
		time:long_name = "time" ;
		time:bounds = "time_bnds" ;
		time:units = "minutes since 1995-01-01 00:00:00" ;
		time:calendar = "standard" ;
		time:axis = "T" ;
	double time_bnds(time, bnds) ;
	float lon(lon) ;
		lon:standard_name = "longitude" ;
		lon:long_name = "longitude" ;
		lon:units = "degrees_east" ;
		lon:axis = "X" ;
	float lat(lat) ;
		lat:standard_name = "latitude" ;
		lat:long_name = "latitude" ;
		lat:units = "degrees_north" ;
		lat:axis = "Y" ;
	float soil_layers(soil_layers) ;
		soil_layers:long_name = "soil_layers" ;
		soil_layers:units = "m" ;
		soil_layers:axis = "Z" ;
	float LAKE_ICE(time, lat, lon) ;
		LAKE_ICE:standard_name = "Mass Fraction of Lake Layer that is Frozen" ;
		LAKE_ICE:cell_methods = "time: mean lake_levels: mean" ;
	float PREC_biasadju(time, lat, lon) ;
		PREC_biasadju:standard_name = "Precipitation" ;
		PREC_biasadju:units = "mm/3h" ;
		PREC_biasadju:_FillValue = -9.e+33f ;
		PREC_biasadju:missing_value = -9.e+33f ;
		PREC_biasadju:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
	float PREC(time, lat, lon) ;
		PREC:standard_name = "Precipitation" ;
		PREC:units = "mm/3h" ;
		PREC:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
	float RH2(time, lat, lon) ;
		RH2:standard_name = "2m Relative Humidity" ;
		RH2:units = "%" ;
		RH2:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
	float SMOIS(time, soil_layers, lat, lon) ;
		SMOIS:standard_name = "Soil Moisture" ;
		SMOIS:units = "m3 m-3" ;
		SMOIS:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
	float SNOWH_biasadju(time, lat, lon) ;
		SNOWH_biasadju:standard_name = "Snow Height" ;
		SNOWH_biasadju:units = "m" ;
		SNOWH_biasadju:_FillValue = -9.e+33f ;
		SNOWH_biasadju:missing_value = -9.e+33f ;
		SNOWH_biasadju:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
	float SNOWH(time, lat, lon) ;
		SNOWH:standard_name = "Snow Height" ;
		SNOWH:units = "m" ;
		SNOWH:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
	float T2_biasadju(time, lat, lon) ;
		T2_biasadju:standard_name = "2m Temperature" ;
		T2_biasadju:units = "K" ;
		T2_biasadju:_FillValue = -9.e+33f ;
		T2_biasadju:missing_value = -9.e+33f ;
		T2_biasadju:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
	float T2max_biasadju(time, lat, lon) ;
		T2max_biasadju:standard_name = "2m Temperature" ;
		T2max_biasadju:units = "K" ;
		T2max_biasadju:_FillValue = -9.e+33f ;
		T2max_biasadju:missing_value = -9.e+33f ;
		T2max_biasadju:cell_methods = "time: maximum" ;
	float T2max(time, lat, lon) ;
		T2max:standard_name = "2m Temperature" ;
		T2max:units = "K" ;
		T2max:cell_methods = "time: maximum" ;
	float T2min_biasadju(time, lat, lon) ;
		T2min_biasadju:standard_name = "2m Temperature" ;
		T2min_biasadju:units = "K" ;
		T2min_biasadju:_FillValue = -9.e+33f ;
		T2min_biasadju:missing_value = -9.e+33f ;
		T2min_biasadju:cell_methods = "time: minimum" ;
	float T2min(time, lat, lon) ;
		T2min:standard_name = "2m Temperature" ;
		T2min:units = "K" ;
		T2min:cell_methods = "time: minimum" ;
	float T2(time, lat, lon) ;
		T2:standard_name = "2m Temperature" ;
		T2:units = "K" ;
		T2:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;
	float T_LAKE3D(time, lat, lon) ;
		T_LAKE3D:standard_name = "Lake Temperature" ;
		T_LAKE3D:units = "K" ;
		T_LAKE3D:cell_methods = "time: mean lake_levels: mean" ;
	float Z_LAKE3D(lat, lon) ;
		Z_LAKE3D:standard_name = "Layer Depth for Lake\"" ;
		Z_LAKE3D:units = "m" ;
		Z_LAKE3D:cell_methods = "time: mean lake_levels: mean" ;
	float TSLB(time, soil_layers, lat, lon) ;
		TSLB:standard_name = "Soil Temperature" ;
		TSLB:units = "K" ;
		TSLB:cell_methods = "time: mean" ;

// global attributes:
		:CDI = "Climate Data Interface version 2.1.1 (https://mpimet.mpg.de/cdi)" ;
		:Conventions = "CF-1.6" ;
		:title = "CMIP6 Downscaled with WRFv4.3.3" ;
		:subtitle = "4-km resolution over Minnesota" ;
		:frequency = "mon" ;
		:NCO = "netCDF Operators version 5.1.3 (Homepage = http://nco.sf.net, Code = http://github.com/nco/nco)" ;
		:CDO = "Climate Data Operators version 2.1.1 (https://mpimet.mpg.de/cdo)" ;
}



2. Relationship between files:        
   Years in the files do not represent actual forecast years but 20 possible realizations for each scenario and each CMIP6 model.



3. Additional related data that was not included in the current data package:
   daily data are available upon request, contact Stefan Liess at liess@umn.edu.



4. Are there multiple versions of the dataset? no


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METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION
--------------------------


1. Description of methods used for generation of data: 
   see Liess et al., 2026: County-scale climate projections over Minnesota and the effects of lakes. Water Resources Research, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025WR040415.