CLIME, the software developed by the CMCC ISC Division

The CMCC is proud to present CLIME, the special software GIS (Geographic Information System) integrated in ESRI ArcGIS Desktop 10.X, developed by the ISC Division – Impact and Coastal Impact Division for a better evaluation of the climatic characteristics, and for the study of climate change and its effects (including impacts on the soil), in a particular geographical domain.
Impact models (eg stability or hydraulic models) are usually developed in a GIS environment, since they need an accurate description of the territory. CLIME was therefore conceived to bridge the gap that traditionally exists between atmospheric and simulated data of the various sources, and the communities examined for the different impacts.

Developed as an add-in for GIS platforms, the CLIME software was designed to support the research activities conducted by the ISC Division in order to assist multiple types of users, with the management and interface between both observed and simulated data, in addition to models of impact analysis of climate change. It is therefore possible to examine and compare several data series (observations, climatic simulations, etc.), and to obtain, through filters and functions implemented within it, different types of analysis such as for example the study of trends, seasonal cycles, PDFs and graphs dispersion of different variables with attached statistical characterization.
The tool also allows the representation of different types of maps, such as maps of climatic anomalies (thermal and rainfall) and error, both for average and extreme values; some techniques for the bias correction of the results coming from the climate model are also implemented.
In summary, CLIME allows users to view the analyzes performed on climatic data and observations on geographic entities of interest (regions, provinces, countries, etc.) in a simple and immediate way.

The CLIME software is used in the Orientgate, Gemina and Nextdata projects, and was illustrated and officially used in three CMCC research papers:

RP0184 – A simulation over the Mediterranean area with COSMO-CLM: assessment of the performances;
RP0183 – Assessment of ERA-Interim driven simulation over Italy with COSMO-CLM;
RP0181 – Simulation of the period 1979-2011 over China with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM.

It has also been used for preparing presentations of meetings and conferences, including:

“Performance evaluation of COSMO-CLM over Italy and climate projections for the XXI century”, presented at the first annual SISC conference
“Very high resolution with COSMO-CLM over Alpine space: benefits versus costs”, presented at the CORDEX 2013 conference
“Climate simulations over MENA-CORDEX domain with COSMO-CLM”, presented as part of the CLIMASOUTH project
Furthermore, the results obtained with CLIME appeared in the article “Performance evaluation of high-resolution regional climate simulation in the Alpine space and analysis of extreme events”, recently submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research.