Study on the characteristics of future precipitation in response to external changes over arid and humid basins

Lianqing Xue,Guang Yang,Aihua Long,Xianyong Meng,Changbing Yang,Guanghui Wei,Boli Zhu

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-15511-5

Abstract

The simulation abilities of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models to the arid basin (the Tarim River Basin, TRB) and humid basin (the Yangtze River Basin, YRB) were evaluated, determining the response of precipitation to external changes over typical basins. Our study shows that the future temporal and spatial variation characteristics of precipitation are different in different regions with the CMIP5. The annual and seasonal changes in precipitation were analyzed for the RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 during 2021~2100 compared to those during 1961~2005. Precipitation shows an increasing trend in the TRB, but which decreases and then increases in the YRB, with a turning point in the middle of twenty-first Century. The ranges in annual precipitation increase with the increase in the scenario emissions in the future. Note that the Tarim River Basin is more vulnerable to the impact of emissions, especially for annual or spring and winter precipitation. Based on the uncertainty of CMIP5 data, the links between future precipitation changes and the elevation and relief amplitude were evaluated. The change of precipitation decreases with elevation, relief amplitude in the TRB, while it increases with elevation but decreases with relief amplitude in the YRB.

Highlights

The global mean surface temperature have been undergone a long-term overall warming trend since the late 19th century[1,2]
Based on the precipitation of CN05.1 datasets, the ability of the comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) ensemble model in simulating the historical climate and projecting the future climate change were evaluated in the Tarim River Basin (TRB) and Yangtze River Basin (YRB)
With the bias from the global climate models (GCMs) limitations, over the TRB, we could project the temporal and spatial distribution of precipitation based on the CMIP5 after bias correction

Summary

Introduction

The global mean surface temperature have been undergone a long-term overall warming trend since the late 19th century[1,2]. Climate change effects are more complex, at different environments and climate conditions Such predictions are available from GCMs, but there exits large uncertainties from the model uncertainty, scenario uncertainty and internal variability[16]. The studies about regional climate change over recent decades at the TRB have concluded an increasing trend in both the temperature and precipitation[26,27]. A number of studies have focused primarily on evaluating ability of the CMIP5 models to simulate precipitation and applicability to projection of potential precipitation changes at a particular basin or region. Et al.[33] conducted a comparative analysis of historical and projected spatial-temporal distribution of extreme precipitations between the Mississippi basin in USA and YRB in China using 31 CMIP5 models. We chose the TRB and YRB, where are in almost opposed external environment conditions

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