Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Associate Professor of Climatology, Department of Geography, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,
2
BA Climatology, Department of Geography, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,
3
Postdoctoral Researcher of Climatology, Department of Geography, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,
Abstract
To project the minimum and maximum temperatures of cold regions of Iran, the data of 28 synoptic stations of the country and the output of CanESM2 model from CMIP5 model series were used. Downscaling with SDSM statistical model is performed for the historical period (1991-2005) and five future periods (2040-2026, 2041-2055, 2056-2070, 2071-2085 and 2100-2086), under three RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 scenarios. Four statistics of PCC, RMSE, MBE, and PBIAS were used to evaluate the minimum and maximum temperature of the SDSM model. The evaluation results of the SDSM model showed that this model has a relatively good performance in high latitudes and cold regions. However, due to the availability of only one GCM interface (CanESM2 model), assumptions of stationarity between the large- and small-scale dynamics, and relying solely on statistical relationships between observational data and GCM, are disadvantages of the statistical downscaling with SDSM and the results are associated with high uncertainty, comparing to dynamical or dynamical-statistical methods and ensemble models. The minimum and maximum temperature anomalies are positive in all five projected periods based on three scenarios of radiative forcing for the 21th century. The results of minimum temperature anomaly showed that the minimum of positive anomaly is observed in Yasuj station and the maximum of that is observed in Piranshahr station. Similarly, positive maximum temperature anomalies are observed in Tehran (Geophysical) and Tehran (Shemiran) stations. In general, the minimum and maximum temperatures under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios show a greater increase than the RCP2.6 scenario, especially for the northwestern regions of Iran. This result is important because with the faster melting of snow cover in cold regions, it is a potential threat to arid and semi-arid countries such as Iran due to reduced access to fresh water.
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