FREE UKCP09 Future Weather Files

Fast, accurate dynamic thermal simulation for energy/carbon modelling and much more...
Post Reply
tjk205
VE Newbie
VE Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 9:19 am

FREE UKCP09 Future Weather Files

Post by tjk205 »

Hello people,

I am afraid this is a shameless plug for my own research. As part of a research council funded project my colleagues and I have compiled future weather files using the UK climate impacts programme's latest set of climate projects UKCP09. These files are probabilistic in nature and were created using the UKCP09 weather generator.

As such they carry no copyright and are freely available for download. Currently the files are only available for the 14 DSY / TRY locations around the UK but more will be added as they are created. For each location there are probabilistic TRYs and DSYs for the high and medium emissions scenarios for the 2030's, 2050's and 2080's.

Information on how the files were created and how they should be used can be found on the site. The files are in .epw format which is compatible with a variety of thermal simulation programs including IES.

Again these files are FREE and are more up to date than the ones sold by CIBSE. I would be happy for people to use them for commercial or academic work (all I ask is credit is given where anything is published). I also welcome any feedback or problems people encounter when using the files.

The files can be found here: http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/cee/prometheus/

Enjoy

Tristan
tjk205
VE Newbie
VE Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 9:19 am

Re: FREE UKCP09 Future Weather Files

Post by tjk205 »

Just a note.

When you download the zip file it will contain 20 .epw weather files. Don't panic this is intentional.

The files are named as to what they are, there are both TRY and DSY type files for two emissions scenarios A1B (medium) and A1FI (high) and there are five probability levels for each scenario. The probabilities are cumulative distribution function (CDF) probabilities used by UKCIP, if you are in doubt about which probability level you require use the 50% as this is the central estimate of the possibly future change.
tjk205
VE Newbie
VE Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 9:19 am

Re: FREE UKCP09 Future Weather Files

Post by tjk205 »

UPDATE
More weather files are now available for more locations around the UK. Previously we had the 14 locations used by CIBSE for the DSY/TRY weather files now there are 30 locations around the UK available for download and more being created every week. Since the current climate data is also available in addition to the future weather files, this will allow a more realistic set of weather files to be used for building simulation as you do not need to use Edinburgh's weather files if you are located in Aberdeen.

Sadly this won't help with showing compliance with building regs but hopefully will lead to better buildings being built.
Post Reply