Generating a High Resolution Climate Scenario Through Regional Climate Modelling Over Part Of Southern Africa

Abstract

Generating a high resolution climate scenario using regional climate models is highly useful to study climate change. Southern African like other global regions is prone to climate extremes and needs better investigation and understanding. This article, therefore, demonstrates the usefulness of downscaling large scale climate scenarios over this region for climate change impact studies. Four experiments were conducted to downscale the GCM HadGEM2-ES model under three climate scenarios, namely the baseline, and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5. The predictions under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 climate scenarios indicate that seasonal rainfall will increase in magnitude by 1 to 65% and 1 to 37%, respectively. The coverage area with increased rainfall varies from 33% to 77% and 49% to 58% for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. Temperatures are also predicted to increase under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. In general, the results are indicative of the potential future climate change impact in the region and may be used for devising adaptation and mitigation strategies.