Climate Projections For The Sava River Basin

Presented are climate change projections for the Sava river basin that follow from the ensemble of 16 combinations of the global climate models (GCM) and regional climate models (RCM). RCMs are normally configured to offer the optimal results for the region as a whole. Thus, they may have in some specific smaller domains also some systematic bias. Such eventual bias can be corrected by comparing the simulated values in smaller domain with measured values in that domain. That was done for the Sava river basin for precipitation amount and temperature for the twenty-first century and the results are presented for summer and winter conditions for two future standard climatological periods: 2011-2040 and 2071-2100 and compared with the reference period 1971-2000. In general, temperature is expected to increase over the basin area in all seasons, but the most pronounced increase can be observed for summer and winter. Precipitation is expected to decrease significantly in summer, whereas less pronounced decrease is expected in spring and autumn. Winter precipitation is expected to increase, especially in the northwestern part of the basin.