Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Observed and projected changes in temperature and precipitation extremes based on CORDEX data over Iran

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Theoretical and Applied Climatology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Due to increasing greenhouse gases, Iran is experiencing changes in patterns and trends of extreme climate events. Future climate extremes are one of the hottest topics affecting agricultural, economical, and environmental balances in many regions. Here, changes in temperature and precipitation extremes are investigated for the observational (1976–2005) and future (2025–2054) periods over Iran. For this, temperature and precipitation data of the CORDEX project acquired from three regional climate models with RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios are simulated using a developed multiscale bias correction downscaling method. For identifying trends and changes in 14 extreme climate indices used in this study from 54 climatic stations, the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator are used. Results show that notable changes can be seen in the climate extremes across Iran for both observed and projected data. Overall, more warming and increasing trends are found for both maximum and minimum values of daily maximum and minimum temperatures, which rise from RCP4.5 to RCP8.5. The number of cold days and nights indicate decreasing trends; alternatively, the number of warm days and nights show opposite behaviors. Changes in the monthly maximum 1-day and consecutive 5-day precipitation illustrate an increasing trend in most model-scenarios for the projected data in the future compared to the observed one. The spatial analysis results reveal that changes in the climate extremes are more noticeable in the northwestern and western regions of Iran. These areas will probably experience heavy disastrous rainfall because the number of very wet days and heavy precipitation days will increase in the future. Changes in climate extremes will likely increase the risk of severe extreme events in the future in these areas and, consequently, make society more vulnerable to natural disasters. The findings of this study can help decision-makers consider appropriate management in the face of climate change consequences.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The data used are not publicly available due to the policy of the Iran Meteorological Organization.

Code availability

Not applicable.

References

  • Adyeri OE, Lawin AE, Laux P, Ishola KA, Ige SO (2019) Analysis of climate extreme indices over the Komadugu-Yobe basin, Lake Chad region: past and future occurrences. Weather Clim Extremes 23:100194

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alijani B, Farajzadeh H (2015) The trend analysis of the northern temperature of Iran. J Geogr Plan 52:229–256 ((In Persian))

    Google Scholar 

  • Arkian F, Karimkhani M, Taheri HR (2014) Variability and trends in the duration and depth of snow cover in Iran in thirty years. J Earth Sci Clim Change 5:239

    Google Scholar 

  • Ávila A, Justino F, Wilson A, Bromwich D, Amorim M (2016) Recent precipitation trends, flash floods and landslides in southern Brazil. Environ Res Lett 11(11):114029

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balling RC, Keikhosravi Kiany MS, Sen Roy S, Khoshhal J (2016) Trends in extreme precipitation indices in Iran: 1951–2007. Theor Appl Climatol 126:775–795

    Google Scholar 

  • Bronaugh D (2020) climdex.pcic: Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC) Implementation of Climdex Routines. R package version 1.1–11. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=climdex.pcic.

  • Darand M (2020a) Future changes in temperature extremes in climate variability over Iran. Meteorol Appl 27(6):e1968

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darand M (2020b) Projected changes in extreme precipitation events over Iran in the 21st century based on CMIP5 models. Climate Res 82:75–95

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dosio A (2016) Projection of temperature and heat waves for Africa with an ensemble of CORDEX regional climate models. Clim Dyn 49(1–2):493–519

    Google Scholar 

  • Dosio A, Fischer EM (2018) Will half a degree make a difference? Robust projections of indices of mean and extreme climate in Europe under 1.5 °C, 2 °C, and 3 °C global warming. Geophys Res Lett 45(2): 935–944.

  • Fathian F, Ghadami M, Haghighi P, Amini M, Naderi S, Ghaedi Z (2020) Assessment of changes in climate extremes of temperature and precipitation over Iran. Theor Appl Climatol 141:1119–1133

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fathian F, Morid S, Kahya E (2015) Identification of trends in hydrological and climatic variables in Urmia Lake basin. Iran Theor Appl Climatol 119(3–4):443–464

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fernández J, Fita L, García-DíezMGutiérrez JM (2010) WRF sensitivity simulations on the CORDEX African domain. In EGU general assembly conference abstracts (Vol. 12, p. 9701).

  • Fischer EM, Beyerle U, Knutti R (2013) Robust spatially aggregated projections of climate extremes. Nat Clim Chang 3(12):1033–1038

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghadami M, Raziei T, Amini M, Modarres R (2020) Regionalization of drought severity–duration index across Iran. Nat Hazards 103:2813–2827

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghimire S, Choudhary A, Dimri AP (2015) Assessment of the performance of CORDEX-South Asia experiments for monsoonal precipitation over the Himalayan region during present climate: part I. Clim Dyn 50(7–8):2311–2334

    Google Scholar 

  • Giorgi F (2019) Thirty years of regional climate modeling: where are we and where are we going next? J Geophys Res Atmos 124(11):5696–5723

    Google Scholar 

  • Gudmundsson L, Bremnes J, Haugen J, Engen-Skaugen T (2012) Technical note: downscaling RCM precipitation to the station scale using statistical transformations comparison of methods. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 16:3383–3390

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guirguis K, Gershunov A, Cayan DR, Pierce DW (2018) Heat wave probability in the changing climate of the southwest US. Clim Dyn 50(9–10):3853–3864

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haerter J, Hagemann S, Moseley C, Piani C (2011) Climate model bias correction and the role of timescales. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 15:1065–1079

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanel M (2016) musica: Multiscale Climate Model Assessment. R package version 0.1.3. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=musica

  • Hanel M, Kožín R, Heřmanovský M, Roub R (2017) An R package for assessment of statistical downscaling methods for hydrological climate change impact studies. Environ Model Softw 95:22–28

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Cambridge Univ Press, New York, p 1535. https://doi.org/10.1029/2000JD000115

  • Islam SU, Rehman N, Sheikh MM (2009) Future change in the frequency of warm and cold spells over Pakistan simulated by the PRECIS regional climate model. Clim Change 94:35–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson F, Sharma A (2012) A nesting model for bias correction of variability at multiple time scales in general circulation model precipitation simulations. Water Resour Res 48:W01504

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Karki U Schickhoff T Scholten J Böhner 2017 Rising Precipitation Extremes across Nepal Climate 5 1 4

  • Kendall MG (1975) Rank correlation methods, 4th edn. Charles Griffin & Company Limited, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kharin VV, Zwiers FW, Zhang X, Hegerl GC (2007) Changes in temperature and precipitation extremes in the IPCC ensemble of global coupled model simulations. J Clim 20(8):1419–1444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koozegaran S, Mousavai Bayegi M (2015) Investigating the trend of extreme weather events in northeastern Iran. J Soil Water 3:750–764 ((In Persian))

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis SC, King AD (2017) Evolution of mean, variance and extremes in 21st century temperatures. Weather Clim Extremes 15:1–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mann HB (1945) Nonparametric tests against trend. Econometrica 13:245–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mehrotra R, Sharma A (2016) A multivariate quantile-matching bias correction approach with auto-and cross-dependence across multiple time scales: implications for downscaling. J Clim 29(10):3519–3539

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mianabadi A, Shirazi P, Ghahraman B, Coenders-Gerrits AMJ, Alizadeh A, Davary K (2019) Assessment of short-and long-term memory in trends of major climatic variables over Iran: 1966–2015. Theor Appl Climatol 135(1):677–691

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Modarres R, Ghadami M, Naderi S, Naderi M (2018a) Future extreme rainfall change projections in the north of Iran. Meteorol Appl 25(1):40–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Modarres R, Ghadami M, Naderi S, Naderi M (2018b) Future heat stress arising from climate change on Iran’s population health. Int J Biometeorol 62(7):1275–1281

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Modarres R, Sarhadi A, Burn DH (2016) Changes of extreme drought and flood events in Iran. Glob Planet Change 144:67–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mohan S, Clarke RM, Chadee XT (2020) Variations in extreme temperature and precipitation for a Caribbean island: Barbados (1969–2017). Theor Appl Climatol 140:1277–1290

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Monier E, Gao X (2015) Climate change impacts on extreme events in the United States: an uncertainty analysis. Clim Change 131(1):67–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nikulin G, Lennard C, Dosio A, Kjellström E, Chen Y, Hänsler A, Kupiainen M, Laprise R, Mariotti L, Maule CF, van Meijgaard E (2018) The effects of 1.5 and 2 degrees of global warming on Africa in the CORDEX ensemble. Environ Res Lett 13(6): 065003.

  • Nkemelang T, New M, Zaroug M (2018) Temperature and precipitation extremes under current, 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C global warming above preindustrial levels over Botswana, and implications for climate change vulnerability. Environ Res Lett 13(6): 065016.

  • Pal JS, Eltahir EA (2016) Future temperature in Southwest Asia projected to exceed a threshold for human adaptability. Nat Clim Change 6(2):197

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pendergrass AG, Hartmann DL (2014) Changes in the distribution of rain frequency and intensity in response to global warming. J Clim 27(22):8372–8383

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • TC Peterson 2005 Climate Change Indices WMO Bull 54 2 83 86

  • Rahimi J, Ebrahimpour M, Khalili A (2013) Spatial changes of extended De Martonne climatic zones affected by climate change in Iran. Theor Appl Climatol 112(3):409–418

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rahimzadeh F, Asgari A, Fattahi E (2009) Variability of extreme temperature and precipitation in Iran during recent decades. Int J Climatol 29(3):329–343

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Razavi T, Switzman H, Arain A, Coulibaly P (2016) Regional climate change trends and uncertainty analysis using extreme indices: a case study of Hamilton, Canada. Clim Risk Manag 13:43–63

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saddique N, Khaliq A, Bernhofer C (2020) Trends in temperature and precipitation extremes in historical (1961–1990) and projected (2061–2090) periods in a data scarce mountain basin, northern Pakistan. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 34(10):1441–1455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sen PK (1968) Estimates of the regression coefficient based on Kendall’s tau. J Am Stat Assoc 63:1379–1389

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sharma A, Goyal MK (2020) Assessment of the changes in precipitation and temperature in Teesta River basin in Indian Himalayan Region under climate change. Atmos Res 231:104670

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shrestha AB, Bajracharya SR, Sharma AR, Duo C, Kulkarni A (2017) Observed trends and changes in daily temperature and precipitation extremes over the Koshi river basin 1975–2010. Int J Climatol 37(2):1066–1083

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sillmann J, Kharin VV, Zhang X, Zwiers FW, Bronaugh D (2013) Climate extremes indices in the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble: Part 1. Model evaluation in the present climate. J Geophys Res Atmos 118(4):1716–1733.

  • Soltani M, Laux P, Kunstmann H, Stan K, Sohrabi MM, Molanejad M, Sabziparvar AA, Ranjbar SaadatAbadi A, Ranjbar F, Rousta I, Zawar-Reza P, Khoshakhlagh F, Soltanzadeh I, Babu CA, Azizi GH, Martin MV (2016) Assessment of climate variations in temperature and precipitation extreme events over Iran. Theor Appl Climatol 126:775–795

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soltani S, Almasi P, Helfi R, Modarres R, Esfahan PM, Ghadami Dehno M (2020) A new approach to explore climate change impact on rainfall intensity–duration–frequency curves. Theor Appl Climatol 142(3):911–928

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Srikanthan R, Pegram GGS (2009) A nested multisite daily rainfall stochastic generation model. J Hydrol 371(1–4):142–153

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth KE (2012) Framing the way to relate climate extremes to climate change. Clim Change 115(2):283–290

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaghefi SF, Keykhai M, Jahanbakhshi F, Sheikholeslami J, Ahmadi A, Yang H, Abbaspour KC (2019) The future of extreme climate in Iran. Sci Rep 9(1):1–11

    Google Scholar 

  • Whan K, Alexander LV, Imielska A, McGree S, Jones D, Ene E, Finaulahi S, Inape K, Jacklick L, Kumar R, Laurent V, Malala H, Malsale P, Pulehetoa-Mitiepo R, Ngemaes M, Peltier A, Porteous A, Seuseu S, Skilling E, Tahani L, Toorua U, Vaiimene M (2014) Trends and variability of temperature extremes in the tropical Western Pacific. Int J Climatol 34(8):2585–2603

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang Y, Tang J, Wang S, Liu G (2018) Differential impacts of 1.5 and 2 °C warming on extreme events over China using statistically downscaled and bias-corrected CESM low-warming experiment. Geophys Res Lett 45:9852–9860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • You Q, Shichang K, Enric A, Nick P, Wolfgang-Albert F, Yuping Y, Yanwei X, Yongjun Z, Jie H (2011) Changes in daily climate extremes in China and their connection to the large scale atmospheric circulation during 1961–2003. Clim Dyn 36:2399–2417

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zarrin A, Dadashi-Roudbari A, Hassani S (2022) Future changes in precipitation extremes over Iran: Insight from a CMIP6 bias-corrected multi-model ensemble. Pure Appl Geophys 179(1):441–464

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) for providing financial support for this research under contract number 98005023. The authors also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their fruitful comments, which improved the quality of the article.

Funding

This work was supported by the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) [contract number 98005023].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Water Science & Engineering, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan, Iran

    Farshad Fathian

  2. Department of Natural Resources, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

    Mohammad Ghadami

  3. Department of Water Science & Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

    Zohreh Dehghan

Authors
  1. Farshad Fathian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mohammad Ghadami
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Zohreh Dehghan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Farshad Fathian and Mohammad Ghadami. The first draft of the manuscript was written by all authors. Mohammad Ghadami and Zohreh Dehghan commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Farshad Fathian.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (PDF 104 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Fathian, F., Ghadami, M. & Dehghan, Z. Observed and projected changes in temperature and precipitation extremes based on CORDEX data over Iran. Theor Appl Climatol 149, 569–592 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04066-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04066-9

Search

Navigation