Observed and modelled temperature and precipitation extremes over Southeast Asia from 1972 to 2010

Abstract

Regional assessments of trends in climate extremes are necessary for countries to make informed decisions about adaptation strategies and to put these changes into a global context. A workshop bringing together several Southeast Asian countries has delivered a new set of daily weather observations suitable to analyse the changes in temperature and precipitation extremes between 1972 and 2010. The use of a consistent and widely tested methodology in this study allows a direct comparison with results from other parts of the world. Trends in a range of climate extremes indices were assessed focusing on spatial variation in these trends. For most locations temperature trends obtained in this study appear broadly consistent with previous assessments; for some locations stronger trends have been detected through the inclusion of new data. In contrast to earlier studies, evidence of trends in precipitation extremes is emerging, with significant increasing trends in both regional and subregional data. In addition, large correlations between regional rainfall extremes and large‐scale features such as El Niño‐Southern Oscillation and the Indian Ocean Dipole were identified. Finally, the observed trends are compared with a regional climate model reconstruction of the historical period. It was found that the model captures very well the trends and spatial variation of temperature extremes across the region, albeit with an underestimation of the more extreme indices. In contrast, the trends in precipitation extremes are largely overestimated, particularly in the western side of Southeast Asia.