Is it ok to use the Sheffield 50-year dataset to produce the conditions for the 10-year base period, rather than using the GSWP2 dataset, due to limited computational resources?
Yes, you can certainly start with the Sheffield data, and hope that you can do the GSWP data later; whatever happens, we just have to explain things well in any papers we write. Re computational resources, however, replacing the 1986-1995 Sheffield period with the equivalent period from GSWP wouldn’t add to the computational expense, other than the cheap offline part, and it would be nice if all the groups could use the same land surface forcing for the ten-year base period. So I would encourage you strongly, if possible, to use the GSWP-2 data for that period – unless, for example, your own institutional needs desire a 50-year analysis based on a single dataset.
