Climate Change in La Plata Basin as Seen by a High-Resolution Global Model

Abstract

This paper\ranalyses the climate change in La Plata Basin, one of the most important\rregions in South America due to its economy and population. For this work it has been used the\rMeteorological Research Institute (MRI) and the Japanese Meteorological Agency\r(JMA) atmospheric global model. For both near and far future, the projected\rchanges for temperature over the entire basin were positive, although they were\ronly statistically significant at the end of the XXI century. Changes in the\rannual cycle of mean temperature were also positive in all subregions of the\rbasin. Regarding precipitation, there were no changes in the near future that\rwere statistically significant. The summer (winter) is the only season where\rboth models project positive (negative) changes for both periods of the future.\rIn the transitional seasons these changes vary depending on the spatial resolution model and the area of\rstudy. The annual cycle showed that the largest changes in precipitation (positive\ror negative) coincide with the rainy season of each subregion. Regarding the\rinterannual variability of temperature, it was found that the 20 km. model\rpro-jected a decrease of this variability for both near and far future,\respecially in summer and autumn. On the other hand, the 60 km. ensemble model\rshowed a decreased of year-to-year variability for summer and an increase in\rwinter and spring. It was also found that both models project an increase in\rprecipitation variability for winter and summer, while in other seasons, only\rthe 60 km. ensemble model presents the mentioned behavior.