Uncertainty Modeling of Statistical Downscaling to Assess Climate Change Impacts on Temperature and Precipitation

Abstract

Consideration of different Statistical Downscaling (SD) models and multi-sources global climate models’ (GCMs) data can provide a better range of uncertainty for climatic and statistical indices. In this study, results of two SD models, ASD (Automated Statistical Downscaling) and SDSM (Statistical Downscaling Model), were used for uncertainty analysis of temperature and precipitation prediction under climate change impacts for two meteorological stations in Iran. Uncertainty analysis was performed based on application of two GCMs and climate scenarios (A2, A1B, A2a and B2a) for 2011–2040, 2041–2070 and 2071–2100 future time slices. A new technique based on fuzzy logic was proposed and only used to describe uncertainties associated with downscaling methods in temperature and precipitation predictions. In this technique, different membership functions were defined to fuzzify results. Based on these functions width, precipitation had higher uncertainty in comparison with the temperature which could be attributed to the complexity of temporal and local distribution of rainfall. Moreover, little width of membership functions for temperatures in both stations indicated less uncertainty in cold months, whereas the results showed more uncertainty for summer. The results of this study highlight the significance of incorporating uncertainty associated with two downscaling approaches and outputs of GCMs (CGCM3 and HadCM3) under emission scenarios A2, A1B, A2a and B2a in hydrologic modeling and future predictions.