Present and future typical meteorological years and heatwave datasets for Catalonia’s four main climatic regions to support building performance and climate resilience simulations

The published datasets provide future climate projections for various Catalan cities located in different climate regions: Barcelona, Lleida, Manresa and La Seu d'Urgell (Pyrenees), representing coastal, pre-coastal, continental, and Pyrenean Mediterranean climate, respectively. The source data are regional climate projections for the RCP 5.8 worst-case scenario of the IPCC's 5^th assessment report. The regional climate projections have been bias-corrected using hourly observational data series from local weather stations. The bias-corrected climate projections are provided for different time periods that are representative of present conditions, mid-term future conditions and long-term future conditions. For each period, the datasets include 20-year, hourly frequency data for the following climate variables: air temperature, relative humidity, global solar radiation, atmospheric pressure and wind speed. These datasets are provided in CSV format. They can be used to assess the impact of climate change in different regions of Catalonia. In addition, weather files that are ready-to-be used to perform building energy performance simulations are provided. These weather files are generated from the 20-year climate projections and the observational data to represent typical and extreme weather conditions in the four regions. The extreme weather conditions correspond to years with long, intense or severe heatwaves. These weather files are provided in the widely used EnergyPlus weather file format (.EPW) and they can be used for climate resilience studies of buildings and urban areas.