Impacts of Climate Change on Precipitation Climatology and Variability in Turkey

In this chapter, changes in seasonal precipitation climatology, extreme weather conditions, and aridity conditions of Turkey are evaluated for the period of 2021–2050 with respect to the reference period of 1971–2000 by using regional climate model simulations. Projections of future climate conditions are modeled by forcing Regional Climate Model, RegCM4.4 of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) with MPI-ESM-MR global climate model of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. The outputs of MPI-ESM-MR are used to generate 10 km resolution data by the double nesting method under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios. The seasonal time-scale performance of RegCM4.4 in reproducing the observed climatology over Turkey is tested by using the output of the global climate model. The projection results show a strong decrease in precipitation for almost all parts of the domain according to the output of the regional model. The intensity of drought conditions is projected to increase. According to the projection results, more arid conditions are expected in the region for the near future. Therefore, drier than present climate conditions are projected to occur more intensely over Turkey.