English Abstract A programming study is performed to determine the
availability of climate change scenarios for impact studies. It is based on
a study of literature and on consultations of scientists involved in the
development and the use of climate change scenarios. On the basis of the
data requirements of the impact modellers, three types of impact studies are
distinguished: single-site studies, multi-site studies and regional studies.
The various techniques to construct climate change scenarios are discussed
in terms of scientific and pragmatic analyses of strengths and weaknesses of
the methodologies. Five suitable approaches for the construction of climate
change scenarios are identified. These are: GCM-based transformation,
regional modelling, National Research Programme (NRP) I transformation and
statistical downscaling either as a separate method or in combination with
weather generators. The availability and the applicability of the five
methods is explored with emphasis on impact studies concerning the
Netherlands and Europe. All methods require substantial tailoring to the
specifications of the various impact studies. It is noted that tailoring
for single-site studies and tailoring for multi-site studies require
different approaches. Finally, the state-of-the-art on scenarios as
described in the IPCC 1995 assessment is outlined.
