Climate Exposure (Ensemble), 2016-2045 and 2046-2075

The Climate Exposure Model is based on aridity and climate. Climate factors include maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation on a seasonal basis and an annual basis. Change was calculated for two future time periods, 2016-2045 and 2046-2075, compared to the historical period, 1971-2000. Temperature and precipitation differences were normalized using the standard deviation over the historical period.

Change in aridity was calculated as the percent change from the historical period. Projected future change is very high for temperatures and aridity. In order to capture both the differences across the region as well as the severity of change, nonlinear conversions were used to convert input data into fuzzy space.