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Study of climate trends and generating regional climate change scenarios in a binational river basin in South America

Abstract:

Despite the fact that there is no agreement among scientists about global warming, climate change, and their effects, there is no doubt that the availability of water resources depends to a great extent on climate. With the purpose of seeking evidence of climate change, the tendencies of the historical series of rainfall and temperature recorded in 40 climate stations located in the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border were studied by applying a fourth order moving average filter. After considering two different scenarios of climate evolution which were proposed by the IPCC, and applying 8 general circulation models, future regional scenarios of rainfall and temperature towards the year were generated toward the future years of 2025, 2050 and 2080. Evidence of climate change was found, and increasing trend of temperature, which is consistent with the volume of emissions of greenhouse gases. According to the scenarios analyzed, considerable climate disorders are forecasted with a steady increase in temperature and an oscillating decrease in rainfall.