TITLE:
Assessment of Future Climate Change Scenario in Halaba District, Southern Ethiopia
AUTHORS:
Tesemash Abebe, Leta Bekele, Misrak Tamire Hessebo
KEYWORDS:
Statistical Downscaling Model, RCP Scenarios, Climate Change
JOURNAL NAME:
Atmospheric and Climate Sciences,
Vol.12 No.2,
March
18,
2022
ABSTRACT: Climate change is one environmental threat
that poses great challenges to the
future development prospects of Ethiopia. The study used the statistically downscaled daily data in 30-years intervals from
the second generation of the Earth System Model (CanESM2) under two Representative
Concentration Pathways (RCPs): RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 for three future time
slices; near-term (2010-2039),
mid-century (2040-2069) and end-century (2071-2099) were generated. The
observed data of maximum and minimum temperature and precipitation are a good
simulation with the modeled data during the calibration and validation periods
using the correlation coefficient (R2), the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), and the Root Mean
Square Error (RMSE). The projected annual minimum and maximum
temperatures are expected to increase by 0.091°C, 0.517°C, and 0.73°C and
0.072°C, 0.245°C, and 0.358°C in the 2020s,
2050s, and 2080s under the intermediate scenario, respectively. Under
RCP8.5, the annual minimum and maximum temperatures are expected to increase by
0.192°C, 0.409°C, and 0.708°C, 0.402°C, 4.352°C, and 8.750°C in the 2020s,
2050s, and 2080s, respectively. Besides, the precipitation is expected to increase under intermediate and high
emission scenarios by 1.314%, 7.643%, and 12.239%, and 1.269%, 10.316% and 26.298% in the 2020s,
2050s, and 2080s, respectively. Temperature and precipitation are projected to
increase in total amounts under all-time slices and emissions pathways. In both
emission scenarios, the greatest changes in maximum temperature, minimum
temperature, and precipitation are predicted by the end of the century. This
implies climate smart actions in development policies and activities need to
consider locally downscale expected climatic changes.