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Regional climate assessment of precipitation and temperature in Southern Punjab (Pakistan) using SimCLIM climate model for different temporal scales

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Abstract

Unbalanced climate during the last decades has created spatially alarming and destructive situations in the world. Anomalies in temperature and precipitation enhance the risks for crop production in large agricultural region (especially the Southern Punjab) of Pakistan. Detailed analysis of historic weather data (1980–2011) record helped in creating baseline data to compare with model projection (SimCLIM) for regional level. Ensemble of 40 GCMs used for climatic projections with greenhouse gas (GHG) representative concentration pathways (RCP-4.5, 6.0, 8.5) was selected on the baseline comparison and used for 2025 and 2050 climate projection. Precipitation projected by ensemble and regional weather observatory at baseline showed highly unpredictable nature while both temperature extremes showed 95 % confidence level on a monthly projection. Percentage change in precipitation projected by model with RCP-4.5, RCP-6.0, and RCP-8.5 showed uncertainty 3.3 to 5.6 %, 2.9 to 5.2 %, and 3.6 to 7.9 % for 2025 and 2050, respectively. Percentage change of minimum temperature from base temperature showed that 5.1, 4.7, and 5.8 % for 2025 and 9.0, 8.1, and 12.0 % increase for projection year 2050 with RCP-4.5, 6.0, and 8.5 and maximum temperature 2.7, 2.5, and 3.0 % for 2025 and 4.7, 4.4, and 6.4 % for 2050 will be increased with RCP-4.5, 6.0, and 8.5, respectively. Uneven increase in precipitation and asymmetric increase in temperature extremes in future would also increase the risk associated with management of climatic uncertainties. Future climate projection will enable us for better risk management decisions.

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Acknowledgments

The corresponding author (Wajid NASIM) is highly thankful to Government of Australia, for Endeavor Research Award/Fellowship (No. 4915_2015) for The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Sustainable Agriculture, National Research Flagship, Toowoomba-QLD 4350, Australia. Moreover, first author is grateful to the International Global Change Institute (IGCI) Hamilton, New Zealand for providing software (SimCLIM 2013), for providing required climatic dataset for future projections with respect to Southern Punjab, Pakistan. Furthermore, co-authors (Wajid NASIM and Shakeel AHMAD) are thankful to Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan, for partial funding.

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Correspondence to Wajid Nasim or Shah Fahad.

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Amin, A., Nasim, W., Mubeen, M. et al. Regional climate assessment of precipitation and temperature in Southern Punjab (Pakistan) using SimCLIM climate model for different temporal scales. Theor Appl Climatol 131, 121–131 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1960-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1960-1

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