Article

Mohammad Hassan Hassanyar, Bamyan University ; Sediqa Hassani ,Avicenna University, Kabul City, Afghanistan ; Jeff Dozier ,University of California Santa Barbra, CA 93106-5131, USA

The aim of study is to project the future climate of the Kabul River Basin of Afghanistan under the recent IPCC AR5 data set . The SimCLIM model was applied for climate modeling. A multi- model ensemble was used for best representation of future climate under the selected RCP4.5 and 8.5 pathways with time span of 2021-2040 (2030s), 2051-2070 (2060s) and 2081-2100 (2090s) with respect to baseline of 1961-2010. The output of multi-model ensemble climate modeling illustrated a considerable change in temperature and precipitation of the basin. The potential seasonal change of Tmax under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 pathways demonstrated peek rise in the winter season and lowest increases in the summer months, the change not exceed from 4.49˚C in winter and 3.96˚C in the summer by end of the century. In addition, under both pathways RCP4.5 and 8.5 the future Tmin depicted high rise at winter and lowest increase at the spring months, under the high emission scenario RCP8.5 the Tmin projected to increase by 4.53˚C and 3.49˚C at winter and spring respectively by the end of this century. However, the overall multi-model ensemble results of future seasonal precipitation pattern showed both downtrend and upward trend in spring and summer at all three periods, under RCP 8.5 the percentage of downtrend and upward projected (-5.02%) in autumn and (+1.55%) in winter by end of the century with respect to baseline, under this pathway the overall annual precipitation pattern simulated to decrease (-2.18%) by end this century.