https://www.ijew.io/paper/projecting-future-temperature-using-cmip5-gcms-over-transboundary-gomal-river-basin

Abstract

Temperature is a key driving force in hydrological cycle, defining the extent of climate change. It causes the alteration in hydrological cycle process, limiting and intensifying the rainfall, increasing the rate of evapotranspiration and changes the crop pattern and duration over a region. Its future analysis is utmost to cope with negative effects of climate change over a specified region. This study also investigates, the future temperature pattern over Gomal River Basin (GRB). To undertake the study, downscaled daily temperature data of four General Circulation Models (GCMS) namely; bcc_csm1_1_m, mpi_esm_mr, ncar_ccsm4 and ncc_noresm1_m and their ensemble mean were first compared and validated with observed data for the period of 1980-2005. After that, temperature was projected for the mid-century (2020-2060) for the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5. The analysis were carried out based on the four seasons; winter (December-February), spring (March-May), summer (June-August) and autumn (September-November). The results indicate that, the basin temperature was accurately predicted by the ensemble mean of the four GCMs with R value of 0.9. All the GCMs projected a warming in future in all seasons. Winter warming is more compared to other seasons. Proper adaptation strategies are needed to cope with the adverse impacts of global warming in the basin. Keywords— Temperature, Climate Change, CMIP5, GCMs, GRB