Regional climate change scenarios for México

Abstract

In this paper we present the regional climate change scenarios that were used for the assessment of the potential impacts in México on agriculture, livestock, forestry, hydrological resources as well as on human settlements and biodiversity. Those studies were developed for the Fourth Communication of México for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and coordinated by the Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera. The climate change scenarios were generated combining the models presented in the Fourth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the criteria established by the IPCC’s Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis. Specifically, climate change scenarios for México for the time horizons 2030 and 2050 were generated using the outputs from ECHAM5, HADGEM1 and GFDL CM2.0 models. The variables considered were monthly temperature and precipitation and the emissions scenarios A1B, A2, B2 and B1. These scenarios were generated using two spatial resolutions: low (2.5º x 2.5º), and high (5´x 5´). The corresponding databases and maps are available at the webpage: www.atmosfera.unam.mx.