Capturing Recent Climate Variations in the Extreme Southern Caribbean with Projections for the Near and Medium Terms: A Downscaling Approach for Trinidad and Tobago

 PDF 

To mitigate adverse effects of future extremes in climate in the extreme southern Caribbean and Trinidad and Tobago require a sound understanding of the science of the climate, along with realistic and region specific projection outputs; in order that an effective response can be provided by respective regions. As a step towards achieving this, downscaling GCM outputs through RCMs is useful at the local and regional scales because it can provide finer detailed and more user friendly output required for planning. Moreover, it is an avenue through which more profound understanding of the science of the climate common to southern Caribbean region can be achieved, which is a prerequisite for effective decision is making in the region. This study addressed questions related to whether PRECIS, a regional climate modelling system, has the skill and quality, to reproduce recent and realistic near and medium term future climates of the extreme southern Caribbean with some focus on Trinidad and Tobago. The findings of the research revealed several observations in relation to the aim of the research. Temperature and rainfall variability in the region have changed in the recent past and given the observed trends are likely to continue changing in the future but with amplifications. PRECIS can adequately reproduce these changes along with the known annual cycle patterns of temperature and rainfall in the ESC and Trinidad and Tobago.

Notes: If you wish to download the full text, please contact library(at)wmo.int (Please replace (at) by @).

Language(s): English

Tags: Climate ; Climate change ; Climate projection ; Caribbean ; Trinidad and Tobago ; Thesis - WMO Fellowship Division Add tag