Generation of climate change scenarios for precipitation and temperature at local scales using SDSM in Wami-Ruvu river basin Tanzania

Publication date: Available online 8 October 2016 Source:Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C Author(s): Metekiya M. Gulacha, Deogratias M.M. Mulungu The Wami-Ruvu River Basin is important for socio-economic activities in country such as water supply for Dar es Salaam and Morogoro cities, and major agricultural activities such as sugarcane irrigation at Mtibwa and Bagamoyo. Due to projected climate change and its impacts at global scale, it is important to understand future climate change impacts on water resources of Wami-Ruvu River basin. Rainfall and temeparature are key variables for analysis of water resources and were used in this study. The statistical downscaling model (SDSM) was used to downscale the coarse global circulation model (GCM) to local scales by involving predictor predictand relationship. The predictor variables were selected based on partial correlation value (partial r) and significance value (p-value). For assessment of climate change, the baseline period was 30 years during 1961-1990. The baseline period was partitioned into two periods for SDSM calibration and validation: 1961-1975 and 1976-1990 respectively. In this case, ground stations and the U.S. National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis atmospheric data were used. During validation, the inbuilt scenario generator was used to generate simulated time series for five stations: Morogoro Maji, Ulaya, Ukaguru, Morogoro Airport, Dodoma Airport and Ruvu at Morogoro R...

Source: Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts ABC - October 9, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: research