Analysis of Climate Change Projections for Mozambique under the Representative Concentration Pathways

Despite having contributed the least to global warming and having the lowest emissions, the African region is the most vulnerable continent to climate change impacts. To reduce the levels of risk arising from climate change, it is mandatory to combine both mitigation and adaptation. While mitigation can reduce global warming, not all impacts can be avoided. Therefore, adaptation is essential to advance strategic interventions and reduce the impacts. As part of the international effort to cope with changing climate, a set of Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) domains have been established worldwide. The CORDEX-Africa initiative has been developed to analyze downscaled regional climate data over the African domain for climate data analysis techniques and engage users of climate information in both sector-specific and region/space-based applications. This study takes outputs of high-resolution climate multi-models from the CORDEX-Africa initiative constructed at a spatial resolution of 50 km to assess climate change projections over Mozambique. Projected spatial and temporal changes (three 30-year time periods, the present (2011-2040), mid (2041-2070), and the end (2071-2100)) in temperature and precipitation under the Representative Concentration Pathways RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 are analyzed and compared relative to the baseline period (1961-1990). Results show that there is a tendency toward an increase in annual temperature as we move toward the middle and end of the century, mainly for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. This is evident for the Gaza Province, north of the Tete Province, and parts of Niassa Province, where variations will be Tmax (0.92 to 4.73 °C), Tmin (1.12 to 4.85 °C), and Tmean (0.99 to 4.7 °C). In contrast, the coastal region will experience less variation (values < 0.5 °C to 3 °C). At the seasonal scale, the pattern of temperature change does not differ from that of the annual scale. The JJA and SON seasons present the largest variations in temperature compared with DJF and MAM seasons. The increase in temperature may reach 4.47 °C in DJF, 4.59 °C in MAM, 5.04 °C in JJA, and 5.25 °C in SON. Precipitation shows substantial spatial and temporal variations, both in annual and seasonal scales. The northern coastal zone region shows a reduction in precipitation, while the entire southern region, with the exception of the coastal part, shows an increase up to 40% and up to 50% in some parts of the central and northern regions, in future climates for all periods under the three reference scenarios. At the seasonal scale (DJF and MAM), the precipitation in much of Mozambique shows above average precipitation with an increase up to more than 40% under the three scenarios. In contrast, during the JJA season, the three scenarios show a decrease in precipitation. Notably, the interior part will have the largest decrease, reaching a variation of -60% over most of the Gaza, Tete, and Niassa Provinces.