Spatiotemporal changes in future precipitation of Afghanistan for shared socioeconomic pathways

Sayed Tamim Rahimi; Ziauddin Safari; Shamsuddin Shahid; Md Munir Hayet Khan; Zulfiqar Ali; Ghaith Falah Ziarh; Mohamad Rajab Houmsi; Mohd Khairul Idlan Bin Muhammad; Il-Moon Chung; Sungwon Kim; Zaher Mundher Yaseen

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e28433

Spatiotemporal changes in future precipitation of Afghanistan for shared socioeconomic pathways

Heliyon. 2024 Mar 20;10(7):e28433. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e28433. eCollection 2024 Apr 15.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Civil Engineering, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
² Department of Water and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, 81310, Malaysia.
³ New Era and Development in Civil Engineering Research Group, Scientific Research Center, Al-Ayen University, Thi-Qar, 64001, Baghdad, Iraq.
⁴ Faculty of Engineering & Quantity Surveying, INTI International University (INTI-IU), Persiaran Perdana BBN, Putra Nilai, Nilai 71800, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.
⁵ College of Engineering, University of Warith Al-Anbiyaa, Karbala, Iraq.
⁶ Department of Hydro Science and Engineering Research, Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Goyang-si, 10223, Republic of Korea.
⁷ Department of Railroad Construction and Safety Engineering, Dongyang University, Yeongju, 36040, Republic of Korea.
⁸ Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Global warming induces spatially heterogeneous changes in precipitation patterns, highlighting the need to assess these changes at regional scales. This assessment is particularly critical for Afghanistan, where agriculture serves as the primary livelihood for the population. New global climate model (GCM) simulations have recently been released for the recently established shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). This requires evaluating projected precipitation changes under these new scenarios and subsequent policy updates. This research employed six GCMs from the CMIP6 to project spatial and temporal precipitation changes across Afghanistan under all SSPs, including SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5. The employed GCMs were bias-corrected using the Global Precipitation Climatological Center's (GPCC) monthly gridded precipitation data with a 1.0° spatial resolution. Subsequently, the climate change factor was calculated to assess precipitation changes for both the near future (2020-2059) and the distant future (2060-2099). The bias-corrected projections' multi-model ensemble (MME) revealed increased precipitation across most of Afghanistan for SSPs with higher emissions scenarios. The bias-corrected simulations showed a substantial increase in summer precipitation of around 50%, projected under SSP1-1.9 in the southwestern region, while a decline of over 50% is projected in the northwestern region until 2100. The annual precipitation in the northwest region was projected to increase up to 15% for SSP1-2.6. SSP2-4.5 showed a projected annual precipitation increase of around 20% in the southwestern and certain eastern regions in the far future. Furthermore, a substantial rise of approximately 50% in summer precipitation under SSP3-7.0 is expected in the central and western regions in the far future. However, it is crucial to note that the projected changes exhibit considerable uncertainty among different GCMs.

Keywords: Bias-correction; Climate change factor; Global climate models; Multi-model ensemble.