TITLE:
Evaluation of Seasonal Changes in Temperature and Precipitation for Iran Five Provincial Centres during 1960-2017
AUTHORS:
Akram Hedayati-Dezfuli, Farahnaz Fazel-Rastgar
KEYWORDS:
Drought, Climate Change, Regional Warming, Low Rainfall
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.8 No.12,
December
16,
2020
ABSTRACT: Climate change is one of the key challenges of our era and it is a threat to sustainable development. Global warming has many meteorological consequences including rising air temperatures across the world. Undoubtedly, human activity has been one of the key factors to global warming followed by increased greenhouse gas emissions which will exacerbate changes in the Earth’s climate variables. So, any research work related to the climate around the world including Iran due to climate change may cause to better understand the cause and effect and make a better adaptation. This study investigates the regional warming in five meteorological stations in central provinces of Iran, based on seasonal changes in precipitation and temperatures over the period of 1960-2017 (study period). The seasonal drought severity based on Palmer index during 1960-2005 was used to monitor the drought intensity in the study areas which are in drought risk situation. The classification of drought severity using Palmer index shows the severe drought intensity in Arak, Qom, Semnan, Tehran and Isfahan respectively in all four seasons, especially during fall and summer. The slight changes in the coefficients of seasonal maximum, minimum and mean temperatures have been resulted. According to these results, the highest maximum (minimum) temperature rise has been calculated for Qom (Tehran) station during spring and winter (fall) seasons ~0.44°C (~0.67°C) in a decade during 1960-2017. However, the highest decrease in precipitation over Arak station has been calculated ~13.8 mm in a decade in winter during study period.