The paper "Climate change impacts on Central Asia: Trends, extremes and future projections" was authored by Dr Bijan Fallah and Dr Iulii Didovets of the Green Vision Central Asia team at PIK. It presents an analysis of observational datasets showing that a warming of 1.2°C has led to a 20% decrease in snow depth in Central Asia over the last 70 years, especially in mountainous areas. This led to cascading effects of unprecedented shocks to the components of the Central Asian climate system.
Analysis of 442 model simulations from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 and 6 (CMIP5, CMIP6) shows that CMIP6 simulations are generally warmer and wetter than CMIP5 simulations in Central Asia, suggesting that CMIP6 anticipates greater warming with high emissions. According to research by Dr Bijan Fallah and Dr Iulii Didovets, CMIP6 models are more sensitive to temperature increases than CMIP5 models. The forced melting of snow leads to an increase in runoff near glaciers and could therefore lead to more floods in Central Asia in the future, which could be catastrophic for the region. The seasonal cycle of temperature change indicates an extension of the glacier melt period under future scenarios of fossil-fuelled development. This study also includes a detailed analysis of the Köppen climate classification, which reveals significant shifts towards warmer climate categories in Central Asia, which may have profound implications for regional hydrological cycles and water resource management, particularly in the Amu Darya and Syr Darya river basins under a warmer scenario by the end of the century.
The uncertainty of CMIP5 and CMIP6 increases for the far future time slice. Future warming of more than 4°C in Central Asia is very likely for all models and in all seasons if no sustainable action is taken, highlighting the importance of further climate research and capacity building in the region.
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