Future climate change scenarios in Central America at high spatial resolution

Pablo Imbach; Sin Chan Chou; André Lyra; Daniela Rodrigues; Daniel Rodriguez; Dragan Latinovic; Gracielle Siqueira; Adan Silva; Lucas Garofolo; Selena Georgiou

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0193570

Future climate change scenarios in Central America at high spatial resolution

PLoS One. 2018 Apr 25;13(4):e0193570. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0193570. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Program, International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, Hanoi, Vietnam.
² Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center, Turrialba, Costa Rica.
³ National Institute for Space Research, Cachoeira Paulista, SP, Brazil.
⁴ Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

Abstract

The objective of this work is to assess the downscaling projections of climate change over Central America at 8-km resolution using the Eta Regional Climate Model, driven by the HadGEM2-ES simulations of RCP4.5 emission scenario. The narrow characteristic of continent supports the use of numerical simulations at very high-horizontal resolution. Prior to assessing climate change, the 30-year baseline period 1961-1990 is evaluated against different sources of observations of precipitation and temperature. The mean seasonal precipitation and temperature distribution show reasonable agreement with observations. Spatial correlation of the Eta, 8-km resolution, simulations against observations show clear advantage over the driver coarse global model simulations. Seasonal cycle of precipitation confirms the added value of the Eta at 8-km over coarser resolution simulations. The Eta simulations show a systematic cold bias in the region. Climate features of the Mid-Summer Drought and the Caribbean Low-Level Jet are well simulated by the Eta model at 8-km resolution. The assessment of the future climate change is based on the 30-year period 2021-2050, under RCP4.5 scenario. Precipitation is generally reduced, in particular during the JJA and SON, the rainy season. Warming is expected over the region, but stronger in the northern portion of the continent. The Mid-Summer Drought may develop in regions that do not occur during the baseline period, and where it occurs the strength may increase in the future scenario. The Caribbean Low-Level Jet shows little change in the future. Extreme temperatures have positive trend within the period 2021-2050, whereas extreme precipitation, measured by R50mm and R90p, shows positive trend in the eastern coast, around Costa Rica, and negative trends in the northern part of the continent. Negative trend in the duration of dry spell, which is an estimate based on evapotranspiration, is projected in most part of the continent. Annual mean water excess has negative trends in most part of the continent, which suggests decreasing water availability in the future scenario.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Central America
Climate Change*
Environmental Monitoring*
Models, Theoretical*
Seasons*
Temperature

Grants and funding

The first author, PI, received financial support from AC3 project from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada. First author work was also partially implemented as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is carried out with support from CGIAR Fund Donors and through bilateral funding agreements. For details please visit https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors. The views expressed in this document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of these organisations. The second author, SCC, would like to thank Brazilian Council for Research and Technological Development, CNPq, for the grant number 308035/20135. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.