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The Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5) Large Ensemble (CRCM5-LE) consists of a dynamically downscaled version of the CanESM2 50-member initial-conditions ensemble (CanESM2-LE). The downscaling was performed at 12-km resolution over two domains, Europe (EU) and northeastern North America (NNA), and the simulations extend from 1950 to 2099, following the RCP8.5 scenario. In terms of validation, warm biases are found over the EU and NNA domains during summer, whereas during winter cold and warm biases appear over EU and NNA, respectively. For precipitation, simulations are generally wetter than the observations but slight dry biases also occur in summer. Climate change projections for 2080–99 (relative to 2000–19) show temperature changes reaching 8°C in summer over some parts of Europe, and exceeding 12°C in northern Québec during winter. For precipitation, central Europe will become much dryer during summer (−2 mm day−1) and wetter during winter (>1.2 mm day−1). Similar changes are observed over NNA, although summer drying is not as prominent. Projected changes in temperature interannual variability were also investigated, generally showing increasing and decreasing variability during summer and winter, respectively. Temperature variability is found to increase by more than 70% in some parts of central Europe during summer and to increase by 80% in the northernmost part of Québec during the month of May as the snow cover becomes subject to high year-to-year variability in the future. Finally, CanESM2-LE and CRCM5-LE are compared with respect to extreme precipitation, showing evidence that the higher resolution of CRCM5-LE allows a more realistic representation of local extremes, especially over coastal and mountainous regions.

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Anaerobic digestion of organic wastes is clearly encouraged by current regulations in Europe. In complement to the energy supply it represents, this biological treatment process also allows the recycling of organic matter and nutrients contained in biodegradable wastes. Indeed the digestion residue can be further promoted as soil improver or fertilizer. The sustainability of anaerobic digestion plants partly depends on the management of these digestion residues. Digestates present particular characteristics that can reduce their direct agricultural valorization and minimize by the way the benefit of such a biological treatment. Thus the first part of this two part paper aims at reviewing and discussing a wide range of biochemical, biological and physical indicators used to assess the agronomic quality of organic products and the feasibility of an aerobic treatment by composting. The definition of agronomic quality is very complex and no single parameter can be picked out to assess the quality of solid digestates coming from different sources. A relevant choice of these parameters will lead to state on digestates agricultural use, whether they can be directly used on soil after digestion or if they need a composting post-treatment before utilization. The second part of this two part paper will choose indicators to characterize several digestates in order to assess their future agricultural use.

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