The IPCC has developed a range of scenarios, IS92a-f, of future greenhouse gas and aerosol precursor emissions based on assumptions concerning population and economic growth, land-use, technological changes, energy availability and fuel mix during the period 1990 to 2100. Through understanding of the global carbon cycle and of atmospheric chemistry, these emissions can be used to project atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols and the perturbation of natural radiative forcing.
Published in Chapter:
Climate Change Impact on the Water Resources of the Limpopo Basin: Simulations of a Coupled GCM and Hybrid Atmospheric-Terrestrial Water Balance (HATWAB) Model
Berhanu F. Alemaw (University of Botswana, Botswana) and Thebeyame Ronald Chaoka (University of Botswana, Botswana)
Copyright: © 2018
|Pages: 24
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3440-2.ch012
Abstract
This chapter aims to evaluate the impacts of climate change on both hydrologic regimes and water resources of the Limpopo River Basin in southern Africa. Water resources availability in the basin, in terms of, seasonal and annual runoff (R), soil moisture (S) and actual evapotranspiration (Ea) is simulated and evaluated using the hydrological model, HATWAB. These water balances were computed from precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (Ep) and other variables that govern the soil-water-vegetation-atmospheric processes at 9.2km latitude/ longitude gird cells covering the basin. The 1961-90 simulated mean annual runoff reveals mixed patterns of high and low runoff across the region. Although relatively small changes in runoff simulations are prevalent among the three climate change scenarios, generally the OSU simulated relatively high runoff compared to the UKTR and HADCM2 GCMs.