Canadian Convective Parameters and Lightning Dataset version 1 (CanCPLDv1)

The Canadian Convective Parameters and Lightning Dataset version 1 (CanCPLDv1) is a comprehensive multi-decade dataset designed to support studies on the future evolution of thunderstorms in North America. Simulating thunderstorms in climate models is challenging due to their small scale, the complexity of physical processes, and the need to parameterize processes within a model subgrid. Changes in thunderstorm activity can be inferred by identifying relevant environmental parameters, such as convective available potential energy, humidity, wind shear, etcetera, and by using statistical techniques to relate these proxies to thunderstorms. Climate model projections of these parameters can then be used with the statistical models to predict future changes in thunderstorm activity. In CanCPLDv1, historical thunderstorm activity is represented by 3-hourly cloud-to-ground and intra-cloud/cloud-to-cloud lightning flash totals from the Canadian Lightning Detection Network (CLDN) (regions north of 40°N on a 0.1° grid), and the thunderstorm environment by 201 convective storm parameters derived from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts reanalysis version 5 (ERA5) (3-hour intervals for all of North America on a 0.25° grid). Gridded CLDN and ERA5 data span the years from 1998-2023. Additionally, the same convective parameters are calculated from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) HighResMIP climate model simulations at 6-hour intervals for 20-year periods corresponding to 1°C (recent past) and 2°C, 3°C, and 4°C levels of global warming above pre-industrial.