Assessment of climate change projections in the Chenab River Basin, Western Himalaya
Keywords:
GCM, Climate change, Temperature, Precipitation, Chenab River BasinAbstract
General circulation models (GCMs) are vital to project potential changes in future
climate under different emissions scenarios. Raw GCM output is not applicable at
regional scale due to biases relative to observational data and coarse spatial scale for
future climate predictions. Here, statistical downscaling method was employed to generate
daily maximum temperature (Tmax), minimum temperature (Tmin) and precipitation of
coarse spatial resolution of GCM (0.5 degree) which fall within the boundary of CRB. In this
study, the fifth generation ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis (ERA5) data was used as observed
data to downscale and bias-correct GFDL-ESM2M data under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission
scenarios for the near future (2020-2050), mid-century (2051-2080) and end of century (2081-
2100) in the Chenab River Basin (CRB). The refined output from the GCM was further
analyzed to depict climate changes in the CRB. It was found that a consistent increase in
maximum temperature (Tmax) and minimum temperature (Tmin) was recorded under RCP4.5
and RCP8.5 in the future scenarios. In the CRB, the magnitude of increase in predicted Tmin
was higher than Tmax. However, precipitation showed an increasing trend in near future while
decreasing trend in the mid-century and end of century under RCP4.5.
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