Download Tab - Design Year

When the "Design Year" option is selected at the top of the page on the Download tab, you can select from a range of options that allow you to configure the data to be downloaded according to your design purposes.

 

There are also some options for more advanced users to control the data generation. These can be accessed by pressing the "Show Options" button.

 

Type of weather data to download

You can select from 3 broad categories of weather data:

 

  • Real year - you can choose the year

  • Typical year - where each month is selected as the most "typical" based on a range of selection criteria.

  • Extreme year - the most extreme year is selected based on the chosen selection criterion.

 

Future projection

If you wish the weather file you download to represent a future climate scenario you can select an option to apply an adjustment to the selected historic data to account for future climate change based on a range of scenarios and year bands.

 

For options selected from the IPCC 2001 and IPCC 2007 lists, adjustments are made to the hourly data based on projected future climate change data stored as monthly min/max temperature, humidity, solar radiation and wind speed differences. Specific adjustments are made for each location using gridded data calculated by the research organisation and provided by the IPCC. For options selected from the Other Sources list, a fixed temperature increment is added to each hour.

 

You can find out more about the various future climate projection options in the Climate Change Scenarios section.

Tip: You can view the data used for the future climate projection for each station from the Analysis tab by selecting the Monthly Interval and the Future Climate Changes option under Data to plot. Then press the "Update" button followed by the "View Data" button.

Sky type

You can override the default recorded sky conditions by selecting from a range of design sky types.

Humidity

The relative humidity data written to the hourly weather file can either be the actual recorded values varying over time, or they can be set to fixed values as follows.

Wind

Select the type of wind to be considered in the weather file by choosing from a range of options.

Options

When the "Show Options" button is pressed some further options are displayed. These allow you to provide finer control over the data downloaded.

 

Temperature model

Climate Analytics provides design air temperature from both the NASA and NOAA databases. The NASA air temperature includes an option to select from 3 different heights above ground surface.

Hourly temperature method

When using the Design Year option, hourly temperatures are generated from daily min/max values using a typical daily profile defined by the research.

Solar radiation and wind

When using the "Design Year" option, solar radiation and wind data average and total values can be accessed from either the NASA or NOAA database.

Time zone

This is read-only data showing the time zone for the location. It is left blank when a specific time zone option in the Time zone adjustment drop list to the right is made to override the default for the location.

Time zone adjustment

In most cases you should use the default "None used calculated" option to calculate the time zone for the location based on its latitude and longitude. The Google time zone service is used for this. However if for any reason you wish to override the default time zone you can do so by selecting an option from the drop list: