Projected changes in temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration across Indus River Basin at 1.5-3.0 °C warming levels using CMIP6-GCMs

Sanjit Kumar Mondal; Hui Tao; Jinlong Huang; Yanjun Wang; Buda Su; Jianqing Zhai; Cheng Jing; Shanshan Wen; Shan Jiang; Ziyan Chen; Tong Jiang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147867

Projected changes in temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration across Indus River Basin at 1.5-3.0 °C warming levels using CMIP6-GCMs

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Oct 1:789:147867. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147867. Epub 2021 May 20.

Authors

Sanjit Kumar Mondal¹, Hui Tao², Jinlong Huang³, Yanjun Wang³, Buda Su⁴, Jianqing Zhai⁵, Cheng Jing³, Shanshan Wen³, Shan Jiang³, Ziyan Chen³, Tong Jiang⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Institute for Disaster Risk Management, School of Geographical Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China.
³ Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Institute for Disaster Risk Management, School of Geographical Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Institute for Disaster Risk Management, School of Geographical Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China. Electronic address: subd@cma.gov.cn.
⁵ Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Institute for Disaster Risk Management, School of Geographical Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China; National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administrations, Beijing 100081, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Institute for Disaster Risk Management, School of Geographical Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China. Electronic address: jiangtong@nuist.edu.cn.

PMID: 34052498
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147867

Abstract

The projections of mean temperature, precipitation (P), and potential evapotranspiration (PET) reflect the probabilities of long-term changes of hydrologic processes and induced extreme events. In this paper, we investigated the future changes in some pivotal climatic variables (mean temperature, precipitation, and potential evapotranspiration) under 1.5 °C, 2.0 °C, and 3.0 °C specific warming levels (SWLs) across the Indus River Basin of South Asia. The seven global climate models output under seven different emission scenarios (SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP4-3.4, SSP4-6.0, and SSP5-8.5) from the latest Sixth phase of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) are used for this purpose. The Penman-Monteith approach is applied to estimate PET, and the water balance equation is for reflecting water surplus/deficit. Results indicate that except for precipitation, the greater increases in temperature and PET are inclined to happen with continued global warming. The highest increase in temperature is accounted for 14.6% (2.4 °C), and the enhanced PET is estimated at 5.2% higher than the reference period (1995-2014) under 3.0 °C SWL. While the precipitation is projected to increase by the highest 4.8% for 2.0 °C warming level. The differences in regional climate for an additional 0.5 °C (2.0-1.5 °C) and 1.0 °C (3.0-2.0 °C) of warming, the temperature is projected to increase by 0.4 °C and 0.9 °C in the entire IRB respectively. The highest increase in mean temperature (5.1%) and PET (2.4%) in the IRB are predicted to intensify for an additional 1.0 °C than that of 0.5 °C of warming, but precipitation is intended to decrease by 0.4%. Spatially, the increase in temperature, precipitation, and PET are dominated towards high elevation in the upper basin (north) under all the SWLs. The increased variability in climatological parameters across IRB depicts an evident occurrence of both wet events (upper basin) as well as dry events (lower basin) with the increase in global average temperature rise. However, these findings provide an insightful basis for water resource management as well as initiating mitigation and adaptation measures in the IRB related to water surplus (floods) and water deficit (droughts).

Keywords: Climate change; Evapotranspiration; Global warming; Indus River Basin; Precipitation; Temperature.

MeSH terms

Asia
Climate Change*
Hydrology
Rivers*
Temperature