Abstract
This study investigates the trends of precipitation and temperature extremes for the historical observations (1961–1990) and future period (2061–2090) in the Jhelum River Basin.Future trends are estimated by using ensemble mean of three general circulation models under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Therefore, statistical downscaling model has been used to downscale the future precipitation and temperature. A total of 15 precipitation and temperature indices were calculated using the RClimdex package. Man-Kendall and Sen’s slope tests were used to detect the trends in climate extreme indices. Overall, the results of study indicate that there were significant changes in precipitation and temperature patterns as well as in the climate extremes in the basin for both observed as well as projected climate. Generally, more warming and increase in precipitation were observed, which increases from RCP4.5 to RCP8.5. For all the stations, increasing trends were found for both precipitation and temperature for twenty-first century at a 95% significance level. The frequency of warm days (TX90p), warm nights (TN90p), and summer days (SU25) showed significant increasing trends, alternatively the number of cold nights (TN10p) and cold days (TX10p) exhibited opposite behaviors. In addition, an increasing trend of warmest day (TXx) and coldest day (TNn) was observed. Our analysis also reveals that the number of very wet days (R90p) and heavy precipitation days (R10 mm) will likely increase in the future. Meanwhile, the Max 1-day (RX1-day) and 5-day (RX5-day) precipitation indices showed increasing trends at most of the stations of basin. The results of the study is of potential benefit for decision-makers to develop basin wide appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures to combat climate change and its consequences.
Highlights
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) points out that the climate change started to affect the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme climate events such as droughts, floods and heat waves globally at the end of twentieth century which is likely to continue in future (IPCC 2013)
This study investigates the trends of precipitation and temperature extremes for the historical observations (1961–1990) and future period (2061–2090) in the Jhelum River Basin
In order to understand the vulnerability of river basins due to climate change, this study analyzed the impact of climate change on extreme climate indices in the Jhelum
Summary
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) points out that the climate change started to affect the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme climate events such as droughts, floods and heat waves globally at the end of twentieth century which is likely to continue in future (IPCC 2013). Abbasnia and Toros (2018) analyzed that the in future rainfall events will be short and intense, the occurrence of extreme temperatures could be more pronounced in favor of hotter events, and atmospheric moisture content will be increased over the Marmara Region, Turkey. This suggests that in future there will be higher occurrence probabilities of heavy rainfalls and droughts. These kind of intense climate events are always associated with social and economic losses. The impact becomes more severe if different extremes occur at the same time for instance heatwaves and meteorological droughts (Sharma and Mujumdar 2017)
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