Climatic projections of Western India using global and regional climate models

Abstract

Abstract This research work aimed to project and analyze climatic variability using GCMs and RCMs in the Hathmati River Basin, which happens to be one of the most important tributaries of Western India. The analysis included a baseline period from 1980 to 2014 and a future scenario (2050s) under a representative concentration pathway (RCP4.5). Following the evaluation of bias correction methods, distribution mapping and power transformation were used for temperature and precipitation projection, respectively. The 2050 s RCP4.5 simulations showed an increase in precipitation to 1,015.54 mm from 936.91 mm giving around a 8.45% increase in average precipitation. For temperature, the maximum temperature was around a 7.05% increase taking the average temperature to 34.21 from 33.97. The minimum temperature was 20.24 from 20.41 showing a positive change of around 8.4%. The future precipitation and temperature change projected might worsen the water stress and increase the probability of the occurrence of severe events, and hence mitigation strategies and management options to reduce this negative impact should be encouraged.