Abstract
Existing climate projections and impact assessments in Nepal only consider a limited number of generic climate indices such as means. Few studies have explored climate extremes and their sectoral implications. This study evaluates future scenarios of extreme climate indices from the list of the Expert Team on Sector-specific Climate Indices (ET-SCI) and their sectoral implications in the Karnali Basin in western Nepal. First, future projections of 26 climate indices relevant to six climate-sensitive sectors in Karnali are made for the near (2021–2045), mid (2046–2070), and far (2071–2095) future for low- and high-emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively) using bias-corrected ensembles of 19 regional climate models from the COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment for South Asia (CORDEX-SA). Second, a qualitative analysis based on expert interviews and a literature review on the impact of the projected climate extremes on the climate-sensitive sectors is undertaken. Both the temperature and precipitation patterns are projected to deviate significantly from the historical reference already from the near future with increased occurrences of extreme events. Winter in the highlands is expected to become warmer and dryer. The hot and wet tropical summer in the lowlands will become hotter with longer warm spells and fewer cold days. Low-intensity precipitation events will decline, but the magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation events will increase. The compounding effects of the increase in extreme temperature and precipitation events will have largely negative implications for the six climate-sensitive sectors considered here.
Highlights
Extreme weather and climate events linked with anthropogenic climate change have become more frequent and intense around the world since the 1950s (IPCC 2013, 2021)
Leveraging the bias-corrected and application-specific Regional climate models (RCMs) ensemble projections generated by Dhaubanjar et al (2020), this study presents the first assessment of the Expert Team on Sector-specific Climate Indices (ET-SCI) indices to understanding changes in future climate extremes and their sectoral implications in Karnali
Our projections show an increase in the annual mean daily minimum and maximum temperatures in Karnali; these increases are more pronounced in the highlands and during winter (Fig. 4)
Summary
Extreme weather and climate events linked with anthropogenic climate change have become more frequent and intense around the world since the 1950s (IPCC 2013, 2021). The changes in extremes will be larger with projected global warming (IPCC 2021). Nepal is one of the most impacted countries by extreme weather events and is at high risk due to its high vulnerability and low readiness (ND-GAIN 2018; Eckstein et al 2021). Climatic disaster incidences have been increasing in recent decades, which is the leading cause of natural disaster mortality in Nepal (Aksha et al 2018). Agricultural productivity losses due to changing climate cause severe food insecurity and have a detrimental impact on the country’s overall economy (Chalise et al 2017; Bocchiola et al 2019). A better understanding of the behavior of extreme values is necessary, to understand its sectoral implications and plan for adaptation (ETCCDI 2009)
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