TITLE:
Climate Change in La Plata Basin as Seen by a High-Resolution Global Model
AUTHORS:
Mario N. Nuñez, Josefina Blázquez
KEYWORDS:
Climate Change; La Plata Basin; High Resolution Global Model; Projections
JOURNAL NAME:
Atmospheric and Climate Sciences,
Vol.4 No.2,
April
23,
2014
ABSTRACT: This paper
analyses the climate change in La Plata Basin, one of the most important
regions in South America due to its economy and population. For this work it has been used the
Meteorological Research Institute (MRI) and the Japanese Meteorological Agency
(JMA) atmospheric global model. For both near and far future, the projected
changes for temperature over the entire basin were positive, although they were
only statistically significant at the end of the XXI century. Changes in the
annual cycle of mean temperature were also positive in all subregions of the
basin. Regarding precipitation, there were no changes in the near future that
were statistically significant. The summer (winter) is the only season where
both models project positive (negative) changes for both periods of the future.
In the transitional seasons these changes vary depending on the spatial resolution model and the area of
study. The annual cycle showed that the largest changes in precipitation (positive
or negative) coincide with the rainy season of each subregion. Regarding the
interannual variability of temperature, it was found that the 20 km. model
pro-jected a decrease of this variability for both near and far future,
especially in summer and autumn. On the other hand, the 60 km. ensemble model
showed a decreased of year-to-year variability for summer and an increase in
winter and spring. It was also found that both models project an increase in
precipitation variability for winter and summer, while in other seasons, only
the 60 km. ensemble model presents the mentioned behavior.