Analysis of climate scenarios for Bolivia

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary description of a study carried out in Bolivia to develop scenarios of climate change resulting from radiative forcing and produced by means of stabilized and transient General Circulation Models (GCMs). These models are valuable tools for simulating the physical processes which determine global climate. A variety of climates are present in Bolivia as a result of the country's physical characteristics, particularly altitude. The country is largely influenced by air masses from the north (Equatorial Amazon Current) and from the south (Austral Current). Therefore, to define a single and homogeneous scenario for the entire country is a particularly difficult task. Temperature and precipitation records from more than 20 weather stations located within the 3 main river basins of the country (Amazon Basin, 'Altiplano' Basin and Plata Basin) were graphically compared with GCM outputs under lxCOz conditions. The GCMs used were GISS, UK89, CCCM and GFDL R-30. The models which best fit the actual values were identified in order to determine the expected temperature and precipitation variations under a doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration condition (2xC02). In the case of Bolivia it was observed that the models providing the best fit were the GISS and the UK89, together with the GFDL 1 % transient model; these were thus selected to develop the climate change scenarios describing possible future trends in climate.