Evaluation of Observed and Future Climate Change Projection for Uttarakhand, India, Using CORDEX-SA

Abstract

The climate change scenarios, especially global warming, have raised significant concerns, and the Himalayan regions such as Uttarakhand are highly vulnerable to such climatic shifts. Considering 10 Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiments in South Asia (CORDEX-SA), experiments with 3 regional climate models (RCMs), driven by 13 global climate models, historical estimates and future projections are analyzed from the mid-century (MC) i.e., from 2021–2050 to the end of the century (EC) i.e., from 2070–2099 to characterize annual and seasonal variations in precipitation and temperature. The analysis shows a decrease in the annual average precipitation by 5.92% at MC and an increase of 5.97% at EC for the Representative Climate Pathway (RCP) 4.5, while precipitation may likely increase from 2.83% to 15.89% towards MC and EC in the RCP 8.5. The maximum temperature may likely increase from 0.42 °C to 3.07 °C from MC to EC in the RCP 4.5 and from 0.83 °C to 5.49 °C in the RCP 8.5. In addition, the minimum temperature may increase from 0.80 °C to 3.25 °C from MC to EC in the RCP 4.5 and from 0.30 °C to 5.86 °C from MC to EC in the RCP 8.5. Notably, a decrease in the pre-monsoon precipitation at EC and a higher increase in the maximum temperature during the monsoon season are observed. An increase in the maximum temperature along with precipitation may lead to an increase in the frequency of the monsoon season’s extreme rainfall events.