Assessment of climate change projections in the Chenab RiverBasin, Western Himalaya

Gneral circulation models (GCMs) are vital to project potential changes in future climate under different emissions scenarios. Raw GCM output is not applicable at regional scale dueto biases relative to observational data and coarse spatial scalefor future climate predictions. Here, statistical downscaling methodwasemployed to generate daily maximum temperature (Tmax), minimum temperature (Tmin) and precipitation of coarse spatial resolution of GCM (0.5 degree) which fall within the boundary of CRB. In this study, the fifth generation ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis (ERA5) datawas used as observed data to downscale and bias-correct GFDL-ESM2M data under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios for the near future (2020-2050), mid-century (2051-2080) and end of century (2081-2100) in the Chenab River Basin (CRB). The refined output from the GCM was further analyzed to depict climate changes in the CRB. It was found that a consistent increase in maximum temperature (Tmax) and minimum temperature (Tmin) was recorded under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 in the future scenarios. In the CRB, the magnitude of increase in predicted Tmin was higher than Tmax. However, precipitation showed an increasing trend in near future while decreasing trend in the mid-century and end of century under RCP4.5.