The Köppen-Geiger system classifies climate into five main classes and thirty sub-types, based on threshold values and seasonality of monthly air temperature and precipitation. Its aim is to map empirically biome distributions around the world. In this paper, we analyze the evolution of this climate classification in the Basque Country for the historical period 1971-2000 and for three periods of future conditions: 2011-2040, 2041-2070, 2071-2100 projected by climate change scenarios.
The baseline data consists of high spatial resolution climate data available in the Basque Country. Different results from the KLIMATEK project on Adaptation to Climate Change are used (promoted by IHOBE -Basque Government-). These results have been generated for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 experiments, based on simulations carried out with regional climate models within the framework of the Euro-CORDEX project. Once the indicators were obtained at a spatial resolution of 12km x 12km, they were also obtained at a resolution of 1km x 1km, using the delta method. This process is carried out for each of the Euro-CORDEX models, so that an averaged result is finally provided, together with a statistic on its dispersion.
The evolution of the Köppen-Geiger maps is accompanied by other bioclimatic indices (aridity/continentality) and diagrams, which reinforce the pre-diagnosis of future climate conditions in the Basque Country. In addition, the dispersion of the models used is taken into account in the analysis of results, showing the most and least unfavorable scenarios.
These indices are applicable in impact and vulnerability analysis studies in sectors such as agriculture and landscape. Although they have received less attention than other indices of climate extremes, they nevertheless reflect concepts that are relatively simple to understand by the general public and are therefore also useful in the task of disseminating the consequences of climate change.
How to cite: Hernandez, R., Martija, M., Gomez de Segura, J. D., and Gaztelumendi, S.: Evolution of Köppen-Geiger's climate classification in the Basque Country in the context of climate change, EMS Annual Meeting 2021, online, 6–10 Sep 2021, EMS2021-248, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2021-248, 2021.
