Proyecciones futuras de sequías en regiones climatológicas del Ecuador

Abstract

In this study, the variation of future drought patterns in the different regions of Ecuador in the period 2041-2070 was calculated and analyzed with respect to the base period 1981-2005 through the standardized precipitation index. For the analysis the change of the spatial and temporal patterns of the different drought categories in regions of Ecuador was identified, and it was analyzed the most significant spatial and temporal changes that can be made. Produce climate change in the country in the scenario of middle emissions RCP 4.5 and high emissions RCP 8.5. The use of a historical database (1981-2005), the global circulation models GCMs product of CMIP5 and their respective emissions scenarios, and their results, a reduction of scale through WRF for the base period (1981-2005) and future projections for the period 2041-2070 in the emissions scenario RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, tools that allowed analyzing the future variation of the drought around climate change by calculating the standardized precipitation index. The evaluation of drought projections for the 2041-2070 period using the standardized precipitation index allows us to identify a rate of decrease in the frequency of all drought categories throughout Ecuador for the scenario of average emissions RCP 4.5. For the scenario of high emissions RCP 8.5, a more dramatic decrease in the frequency of all the drought categories in Ecuador is expected. The regions in which the most drastic divisions of drought frequency are reduced, both spatial and temporal, are the sierra and the oriente.