ClimateChange Assessment Guide.pdf - University of Waterloo

E-34Guide for Assessment of Hydrological Effects of Climate Change in OntarioAn extensive analysis of the future local climates was conducted. Climates have been compared in terms of airtemperature, precipitation, solar radiation, wind speed and calculated PET. Annual and mean monthly parameterswere compared. Air temperatures were also compared by numbers of hot days above 30 o C and numbers of colddays below 0 o C. Examples of the comparisons are included below.Figures 5-4 and 5-5 show the monthly average air temperature and total precipitation for the nine Percentile Methodclimates compared with the current climate. Understanding how the future climates differ from the current climate isimportant to understand the hydrologic impact assessment results. Air temperature increases above the currentclimate are larger in the winter months, although they are reasonably consistent across the remaining seasons.Precipitation changes are highly variable by month with a tendency to have higher precipitation through colder monthsand no apparent summer patterns.Figure 5-6 shows the total precipitation, solar radiation, PET and the average annual wind speed and air temperaturefor the downscaled climates based on the SDSM, including the associated change field climates (i.e., CGCM3-A1Band A2). Wind speed and solar radiation are very similar across this group and they are relatively unchanged fromthe current condition. Other parameters display similar ranges as observed with the nine Percentile Method climatesshown above. Figure 5-4: Monthly average air temperature for nine future climates compared to the current climate.