Future changes in the frequency of weather types over the South Atlantic Ocean: Data_results

The files of frequencies of historical occurrence is composed of the frequencies of relative occurrence of each weather type for the reference period, from the CFSR reanalysis data and the simulated frequencies for each model. The future projections file consists of the projected frequencies of occurrence and the magnitude of the changes for each scenario, time interval and model.Climate change is expected to affect the frequency of regional atmospheric circulation patterns and, consequently, it will result in changes in meteorological and oceanographic conditions. Here, we present a dataset that consists of the frequency of the main atmospheric patterns (weather types) over the South Atlantic Ocean in the past and future. We used a reanalysis hindcast to identify 25 weather types representing the typical synoptic conditions in the region over the past 32 years. We verified the performance of the CMIP5 and CMIP6 projections on describing the frequency of these main weather types over the South Atlantic and assessed the potential changes in these frequencies in the future. The scenarios project variations of up to 3% in the frequency of some weather types over the 21st century. The data set and the performance analysis presented here can be used to support future statistical analysis, such as statistical downscaling experiments of oceanographic variables and studies on climate variations in the South Atlantic.