by Brianna Crandall — May 12, 2014—Arup, a multidisciplinary engineering and consulting firm with a reputation for delivering innovative and sustainable designs, just announced that it has partnered with Argos Analytics to develop WeatherShift, a tool that generates future climate weather data for 50 cities for simulating building and urban performance.
The data is based on climate simulations run for the recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) . According to the report, energy use, water stress, and the comfort conditions of buildings and their urban environments throughout the world will be impacted as the average global temperature increases due to climate change, resulting in significant shifts in weather patterns.
With WeatherShift, cities and building owners in all 50 cities will be able, for the first time, to quantitatively assess the impact of climate change on their place making, says Arup. Additionally, designers will be able to further develop strategies through which buildings can be readied to respond to the impacts and maintain their core service. Designs that have had to use historic data can now be complemented by future data derived from multiple global climate models, notes the company.
The proprietary tool will also be utilized to minimize building owner’s risk due to increased operational costs, and will help owners make better informed investment decisions during the initial design phases on large masterplanning and infrastructure projects.
The current version of WeatherShift adjusts weather data for years 2046-2065 and 2081-2100 at user-defined points on the distributions for both the RCP4.5 (Representative Concentration Pathways) and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios.
