Arid Zone Research ›› 2023, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (10): 1547-1562.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2023.10.02

• Weather and Climate • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Future climate change trends in the Shiyang River Basin based on the CMIP6 multi-model estimation data

DAI Jun1,2(),HU Haizhu1,2(),MAO Xiaomin2,3,ZHANG Ji2,4   

  1. 1. School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of River and Lake Ecology, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010020, Inner Mongolia, China
    2. National Field Scientific Observation and Research Station on Efficient Water Use of Oasis Agriculture in Wuwei of Gansu Province, Wuwei 733009, Gansu, China
    3. College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
    4. Wuwei Municipal Water Bureau, Wuwei 733099, Gansu, China
  • Received:2023-02-27 Revised:2023-05-05 Online:2023-10-15 Published:2023-11-01

Abstract:

Due in large part to global climate change, drought, flood, and high temperature events have increased significantly around the world in recent years. The Shiyang River Basin is in Northwest China and fringes onto a monsoon region, and is consequently, highly sensitive to climate change. The rapid development of oasis agriculture has led to high levels of development and the utilization of water resources in fragile ecological environments. Future climate change will aggravate the uncertainty of water resources in the basin, posing a threat to food security and economic development. Coupled General Circulation Models (GCMs) play an important role in the prediction of future climate change and formulation strategies to help devise adjustments accordingly. Based on the observed data in the historical period (1985-2014), the simulation capabilities of 11 climate models from the 6th international Coupled Model Intercomparison Program (CMIP6) in the Shiyang River Basin were evaluated. The equidistant cumulative distribution function method was applied to downscale climate data to obtain the future climate change trend for the basin as presented in this paper. The results show that the CMIP6 multi-model ensemble has good applicability in the Shiyang River Basin, as it accurately depicts the annual and seasonal distribution characteristics of climate factors, including precipitation, temperature, and potential evapotranspiration. The model performs well when simulating temperatures, in comparison to precipitation. While multimodel ensemble mean data perform better when simulating precipitation and temperature in the Shiyang River Basin, in comparison with other models. Under different future scenarios (2023-2100), precipitation, temperature, and potential evapotranspiration in the basin show a significant upward trend and increase with the radiative forcing increase. The late 21 century shows a greater increase in climate factors than the early and middle periods. Compared to the historical period, precipitation in the future could increase by 45.02% in the winter and 0.38% in the summer, and the greatest temperature increases can occur in spring and autumn. In the future, the aridity index of the Shiyang River Basin will decrease overall. The climate of the basin will tend to warm and humidify, with the summer season becoming drier while the other seasons become wetter than those in the historical period. The Minqin Basin located in the lower reaches of the basin is the area most sensitive to climate change. The research results have important reference value as they will help to address future climate change and ensure sustainable economic and agricultural development in the Shiyang River Basin.

Key words: CMIP6, Shiyang River Basin, regional climate change, dryness index, future