What time period should I select for my analysis?

The specific time period you select will depend on the purpose of your analysis. However, regardless of the time period you select, we recommend that you abide by a few principles:

• Look at long-term climate trends. You will get a more accurate projection if you look at a period of at least a few decades. This is why typical mid-century (2035-2064) and end-of-century (2071-2099) windows are thirty-year time slices.

• Avoid conflating climate with weather. Climate models cannot tell us what the weather will be like on any given day in the future, nor is any single year’s projection particularly meaningful.

• Consider both average values and extreme values in the time period you select across all the models you are working with to capture trends and the full projected envelope of variability.