| Abstract | Climate change adaptation planning and solutions for coastal infrastructure and navigation in the St. Lawrence marine corridor, which plays a key role in Canada’s economy and supply chain, are highly dependent on the availability of climate change information at high spatial and temporal resolutions. In this study, ultra-high-resolution regional climate model simulations are implemented using Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model for current and future climates. Advanced and targeted diagnostics are used to identify vulnerability hotspots and opportunities to address specific climate risks within the corridor. First, an ultra-high spatial resolution (~ 4 km) simulation spanning the 1989–2010 period for a domain covering the St. Lawrence marine corridor is performed using the GEM model driven by the ERA5 reanalysis. Comparisons of modelled climate fields and parameters relevant to infrastructure and navigation with available observations confirmed the ability of the model to simulate important processes, mechanisms, and seasonality. This is followed by future climate simulations, spanning the 2041–2060 and 2081–2100 periods for Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario, driven by Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM2) outputs. Given the coarse resolution of CanESM2, a grid-telescoping approach is used, i.e. a 10 km spatial resolution GEM simulation driven by CanESM2 is first performed, the outputs of which are used as lateral boundary conditions for high-resolution GEM simulations at 4 km horizontal resolution. Advanced diagnostics focused on extreme weather and climate are used to understand and pinpoint potential climate risks within the St. Lawrence marine corridor, particularly with respect to navigability, and the potential climate resiliency of key transportation assets in the study region. This paper will present these results, which will form the basis for additional detailed investigations on climate-infrastructure interactions and other climate resiliency studies. |
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