Benchmarking Downscaled Precipitation to Optimize Stakeholder Resilience to Extremesusing the CORDEX-Australasia Ensemble

Regional governments and stakeholders increasingly request downscaled climate model simulations to better inform growing climate risks and vulnerabilities. Presently, there is no standardized framework or metrics identified to evaluate downscaled rainfall data. Previous studies typically evaluate the ensemble mean and do not holistically incorporate precipitation characteristics relevant to stakeholder needs, including extremes. I introduce a standardized benchmarking framework to evaluate downscaled rainfall across spatiotemporal scales relevant to various stakeholder applications. Benchmarking seeks to understand how well a model should perform by defining performance expectations a priori and includes thorough evaluation of model set-up (including e.g. the convection scheme and other model parameterizations). A hierarchy of model performance expectations is presented to guide users in selecting a subset of "fit for purpose" simulations to optimise rainfall projections across spatiotemporal scales and societal needs.