Assessment of NASA POWER for Climate Change Analysis using the De Martonne Climate Index in Northern Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Global warming is threatening human population, one of which is the frequent climate disasters, i.e., floods and drought, which affect the global food security. However, the assessment of regional climatic changes is constrained by the lack of high-quality long-term climate data. Taking the Northern Region of Peninsular Malaysia as the study area, this paper aims to assess the performance of NASA POWER in estimating annual and seasonal variability of the climate variables via De Martonne climate indices from 1985 to 2021. The findings shows that NASA POWER performed satisfactory in estimating both mean temperature and rainfall over the northern Peninsular Malaysia. The NASA POWER project performs the best in Bayan Lepas station with C = 0.70 for annual mean temperature while for annual rainfall is at the Ipoh station with C = 0.50. The annual De Martonne climate index shows that the study area is dominated by wet climate conditions, since the index classify the climate as “very humid” to “extremely humid”. The De Martonne climate indes is calculated from both data source is very similar. Therefore, NASA POWER data is useful in climate studies, while the knowledge of climate variability is beneficial for climate change mitigation and adaptation plans, particularly for agriculture.