Climate Extremes Projection

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PAGASA) regularly conducts climate modeling initiatives, in collaboration with domestic and international partners to better understand climate change and its effects in the country. In partnership with the Manila Observatory and the Ateneo de Manila University, DOST-PAGASA took part in the “Analyzing CORDEX-SEA (Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment — Southeast Asia) Regional Climate Simulations for Improved Climate Information over the Philippines: SST Influence, Variability and Extremes, Tropical Cyclone Activity” program that aims to generate high-resolution climate change information from multiple state-of-the-art climate models.

 

In this report, the downscaled historical and projected daily extremes data were used to calculate the projected changes in 24 climate extremes indices for two Representative Concentration Pathways: RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Historical simulations for the baseline period (1986–2005) served as the threshold. The multi-model ensemble consisted of 12 models consisting of three regional climate models (RCMs) forced with data from 10 global climate models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project — Phase 5 (CMIP5) archive. SA-OBS, a daily gridded observational dataset for Southeast Asia based on the Southeast Asian Climate Assessment & Dataset (SACA&D) project was used as the historically observed baseline data.

 

The Philippine Climate Extremes Report 2020 presents information on historical and projected annual climate extremes indices of the country and demonstrates their relevance to sector-specific climate impacts assessment. This report extends the climate projection information released by DOST-PAGASA in 2018 which used the 10th, 50th and 90th percentile thresholds of temperature and rainfall to describe the average annual and seasonal changes in future climate scenarios. The annual climate extremes indices may be used to identify areas and sectors which are most at risk to climate extremes and thus require rapid disaster risk assessment and climate adaptation planning to minimize current and future impacts. Local government units may use this report in formulating local climate change action plans and mainstreaming of national climate change initiatives.

 

Since the choice of climate change adaptation strategies is rooted in the proper understanding of the impacts of extreme events, this report also presents a framework for analyzing possible impacts and assessing adaptation options for highly sensitive sectors.

 

Provincial tables of observed and projected changes in climate extremes are provided in the Annex as reference.

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DOST-PAGASA, Manila Observatory and Ateneo de Manila University. 2021. Philippine Climate Extremes Report 2020: Observed and Projected Climate Extremes in the Philippines to Support Informed Decisions on Climate Change Adaptation and Risk Management. Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, Quezon City, Philippines. 145 pp.