Regional Climate Change in Southeast Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula, Central America and the Caribbean

Mercedes Andrade-Velázquez,Ojilve Ramón Medrano-Pérez,Martín José Montero-Martínez,Alejandro Alcudia-Aguilar

doi:10.3390/app11188284

Abstract

This study analyzes the mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures and precipitation trends in southeast Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula, Central America and the Caribbean regions. The Climate Research Unit (CRU) TS 4.01, with a spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5°, was the database used in this research. The trends of the four selected climate variables cover the period from 1960 to 2016. The results obtained show a clear and consistent warming trend, at a rate of about 0.01 °C/year for the entire study region. These results are consistent with some previous studies and the IPCC reports. While the trends of precipitation anomalies are slightly positive (~0.1 mm/year) for southeast Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula and almost the entire Caribbean, for Central America (CA) the trends are negative. The study also presents the correlation between temperatures and precipitation versus El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) drivers, indicating global warming and frequency signals from the climate drivers. In terms of the near future (2015–2039), three Representative Concentration Pathways (RPC) show the same trend of temperature increase as the historical record. The RCP 6.0 has trends similar to the historical records for CA and southeast Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula, while the Caribbean corresponds to RCP 4.5. In terms of the far-future (2075–2099), RCP 6.0 is more ad-hoc for southeastern Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula, and RCP 8.5 corresponds to Central America. These results could help to focus actions and measures against the impacts of climate change in the entire study region.

Highlights

Peninsula [9,33], due to these regions having a similar climatology [14] to Central America (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama), which is understood here to include the bigger islands of the Caribbean (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico), due to data availability
This result is in agreement with the IPCC reports, in which this warming is attributed to greenhouse gas (GHG)
For the Caribbean north, the warming is present from the 1960s, and for the Caribbean west, near Belize, warming is present from the 1950s

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is considered to be the greatest threat of the 21st century [2,3]. It manifests itself in increases in the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods [4,5], and its negative impacts on the natural, environmental, economic, and social spheres [6]. The differentiated effect of climate change occurs in tropical and arid areas [4], urban and rural areas, and in developing countries [3,7,8]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion