ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the future climate data required for the design and evaluation of buildings and infrastructure systems considering climate change. Currently, the climatic design data of buildings and infrastructure are based on historical observations, which due to climate change, can result in higher risks of failure. The future climatic conditions largely depend on human-induced greenhouse gas emissions described by emission scenarios. The responses of different climate models to the future emissions result in uncertainty in climatic data projections. Moreover, the projected climatic data are expected to vary with time, which is known as climate non-stationarity, which depends on the type of the climatic parameter and the design life. The building or infrastructure with longer design life are more prone to uncertainty and non-stationarity. A number of climatic design values for locations across Canada are analyzed to illustrate the implications of climate change for climatic design parameters.
