Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Precipitation and Temperature in the Ghataprabha Sub-basin Using CMIP5 Models

The study on historical and future variation in precipitation and temperature is needed to develop effective adaptation strategies for changing climate. The present study investigated the potential impacts of climate change on precipitation and temperature and the performance of individual downscaled global circulation models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 dataset over the Ghataprabha sub-basin, India. The simulations were carried out using observed, historical and future climate datasets. With the help of statistical indicators, the study also aims at the selection of reliable GCMs for the multi-model ensembling to reduce the uncertainty in the projected results over the sub-basin. The percentage change in precipitation and temperature relative to the historical period was presented based on the multi-model ensemble average under 4 representative concentration pathways (RCPs), viz. RCP 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5 scenarios, for the three time slices: the beginning of the century (2010–2039), middle century (2040–2069) and end century (2070–2099). Results revealed that the percentage change in annual mean precipitation over the study area for three time slices beginning century, mid-century and end century may likely to increase by 1.68% to 3.57%, 9.35% to 15.07% and 19.51% to 32.28% and the daily average mean temperature may likely to increase by 4.15% to 4.38%, 5.76% to 9.72% and 6.11% to 16.64%, respectively.