Case study: practical engineering approaches for assessing future climate conditions

'Full text:' As the evidence pointing towards climate change mounts, it is critical to consider future climate conditions in engineering designs and new developments meant to operate upwards of 50 years. It is the purpose of this presentation to present a few practical engineering approaches for "a best estimate" of plausible future climate conditions. Two different case studies will be reviewed; a mining operation in Arctic Canada and a proposed "Carbon Neutral" city in the Middle East. In both cases, a realistic assessment of baseline conditions was completed through a combination of available long-term historical data from climate stations in the region, and limited surface data from the study sites themselves. Three different approaches for predicting future climatic conditions were identified based on the specific engineering requirements of the projects. The approaches to be discussed include the application of Global Circulation Model results directly, statistical downscaling, and dynamic downscaling. (author)