Assessment of future climate classification on Urmia Lake basin under effect of climate change

Climatic balance of the Earth, global warming and climate change are the most important phenomena in this century. One of the valid empirical methods to establish a quantitative measure of the relationship of temperature and rainfall is index of aridity developed by De Martonne. In this research, three future periods were considered and De Martonne's method is chosen to categorise climate. The spatial effect of climate change on climatic classification for the periods is investigated. Urmia Lake basin is taken as a case study using downscaled output of HadCM3 model, created by Climate Research Unit (CRU) Institute. Considering this matter that AOGCMs have a high uncertainty, a new methodology and spatial downscaling are utilised. As the final results show, the climate of basin in future has a high sensitivity to climate change. Grouping the scenarios indicates a conversion in main climate of the basin from semi-arid climate to arid one.