# Why do values stored in data files, such as climate model output, appear to be high?

I'm in doubt of some values for future scenarios of climate change that were downloaded from http://www.worldclim.org/version2. For example, the NCAR circulation model for bio_5 variable at optimistic scenario (Max Temperature of Warmest Month) to 2050 is 335.33.

Other similar calculations with other scenarios, circulation models and another future year, returns values ranging from 55 to 103 for the max temperature of warmest month. This appears wrong. Am I reading the data correctly?

• sure would be nice if you cited or linked to the source of information you are intrepreting. – farrenthorpe May 4 '17 at 3:14
• Those numbers are impossible and I'm quite sure you're reading the data wrong. Without source data, as @farrenthorpe points out, your question is meaningless. – userLTK May 4 '17 at 4:17
• Also, 335.33 as a temperature is far too specific. No climate model is likely to predict temperature to 1/100th of a degree C for a specific year. 335.33 is likely a measurement of some kind, not a temperature prediction. – userLTK May 4 '17 at 6:21
• @userLTK I suspect that the OP is quoting raw numbers from CMIP5-like outputs, in which case the precision is just because they're stored as 32-bit floats. They're also possibly quoting an individual daily max temperature from some grid box on some day, rather than a max monthly mean, so values > 50ºC are possible. For example, a random dip into the CMIP5 data gives me 57ºC for CCSM3 and 95ºC for HadCM3 under RCP4.5. – Deditos May 4 '17 at 10:11
• @kingledion I think the question can be useful. It is common for scientific values to be stored as scaled integers, in case of NetCDF with scale_factor defined as a variable attribute. Emanuel is not the first and won't be the last with this problem. – gerrit May 5 '17 at 10:54