Projection in Extreme Climate Events and uncertainty analysis in the Source Area of the Yellow River for the Next Three Decades

Abstract

The spatial and temporal characteristics of extreme temperature and precipitation events were studied by using extreme climate indices based on the daily outputs of five general climate models (GCMs), including maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation, in the period of 2021-2050 under the representative concentration pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5) scenario. The results show that compared with the period of 1971-2000, Warmest day and Warm days (the warm event) could increase by 1.4°C and 12.5d, respectively, and Frost days and Cool nights (the cold event) could decrease by 24.5d and 6.8d, respectively. The coldest night could increase by 2.1°C, the diurnal temperature range could decrease by 0.1°C. The precipitation frequency and intensity indices (Number of heavy precipitation days, Simple daily intensity indices, Max 1-day precipitation amount and Max 5-day precipitation amount) could increase by 1.1d, 3.1%, 8.4% and 6.3%, respectively. The very wet days could increase by 24.6% and the consecutive dry days could decrease by 12.3d. But, the spatial distributions of changes in extreme climate events are uneven. Although projected changes are still uncertain to some extent, the trends among different GCMs show a good consistency.