Quantifying precipitation changes in Northern Cyprus under the influence of climate change

Date

2023-9

Author

Okur, Ahmet Serhat

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There are some expected changes in the usual weather patterns of the Eastern Mediterranean due to the changing climate conditions of the region. In this study, the focus will be on the Northern Cyprus. The possible effects of climate change on precipitation trends which could be experienced in the future were examined. For that manner, the observational precipitation data and 14 climate models are adopted from EURO-CORDEX database for nine stations to create projections on future precipitation under two different climate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). First, a control period (1978-2005) was formed to check the accuracy of raw models compared to observational data. To correct the biases in the model data, two different bias correction methods of Empirical Quantile Mapping and Gamma Quantile Mapping were adopted. Afterwards, five best performing climate models were selected to create a multi-mean ensemble. Prior to analyze future simulations, observation data were analyzed to see if there was a trend in the precipitation between 1978-2015. Later, by using the multi-mean ensemble, simulations of near future (2024-2062) and far-future (2063-2100) are investigated to check changing trends of precipitation by applying Modified Mann-Kendall, Innovative Trend Analysis, and Sen's Slope Estimator methods. According to the results obtained with these analyzes, in general, all three trend tests in both climate scenarios predicted decreasing precipitation trends for the near future (2024-2062) on both annual and seasonal basis. Trend tests for the far-future (2063-2100) detected an overall upward trend in the RCP4.5 scenario, both at annual and seasonal levels. However, all trend tests for the RCP8.5 scenario showed a downward trend in annual, winter, and spring season analysis. While a generally decreasing trend was detected in trend tests for the autumn season, a few number of stations with an ascending trend were also detected.

Subject Keywords

Mediterranean, Northern Cyprus, Climate model, Bias correction

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/105620

Collections

Northern Cyprus Campus, Thesis