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Uncertainty assessments of climate change projections over South America

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Abstract

This paper assesses the uncertainties involved in the projections of seasonal temperature and precipitation changes over South America in the twenty-first century. Climate simulations generated by 24 general circulation models are weighted according to the reliability ensemble averaging (REA) approach. The results show that the REA mean temperature change is slightly smaller over South America compared to the simple ensemble mean. Higher reliability in the temperature projections is found over the La Plata basin, and a larger uncertainty range is located in the Amazon. A temperature increase exceeding 2 °C is found to have a very likely (>90 %) probability of occurrence for the entire South American continent in all seasons, and a more likely than not (>50 %) probability of exceeding 4 °C by the end of this century is found over northwest South America, the Amazon Basin, and Northeast Brazil. For precipitation, the projected changes have the same magnitude as the uncertainty range and are comparable to natural variability.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison and the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling, for their roles in making the WCRP CMIP3 multimodel dataset available. The first author was supported by the Coordination for Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Additional funding was provided by Rede-CLIMA, the National Institute of Science and Technology for Climate Change (INCT-CC), and the FAPESP-Assessment of Impacts and Vulnerability to Climate Change in Brazil and strategies for Adaptation options project (Ref. 2008/58161-1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Weather Forecast and Climate Studies (CPTEC), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Rodovia Presidente Dutra km 40, 12630-000, Cachoeira Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil

    Roger Rodrigues Torres

  2. Natural Resources Institute (IRN), Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI), Av. BPS, 1303, 37500-903, Itajubá, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Roger Rodrigues Torres

  3. Earth System Science Center (CCST), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Rodovia Presidente Dutra km 40, 12630-000, Cachoeira Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil

    Jose Antonio Marengo

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  1. Roger Rodrigues Torres
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Correspondence to Roger Rodrigues Torres.

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Torres, R.R., Marengo, J.A. Uncertainty assessments of climate change projections over South America. Theor Appl Climatol 112, 253–272 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-012-0718-7

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