Envisioning Future Climate Conditions in the Philippines:

An Analysis of General Circulation Models based on the Special Report on

Emissions Scenarios
E. R. Castillo and J .T. Villarin, S.J .
Climate Studies Division, Manila Observatory
Ateneo de Manila Campus, Loyola Heights, Q. C.
ella@observatory.ph, jett@admu.edu.ph
Abstract
General Circulation Model based on the Special
Reports on Emissions Scenarios are downscaled in
order to determine future possible climate conditions
in the Philippines.
1. Introduction
Climate change is inevitable. Even before man
has inhabited the earth, temperature has risen and
descended through the centuries. With the change in
temperature, precipitation and other climatic pa-
rameters changed as well. This is all a natural cycle
which the earth goes through every thousands of
years. Greenhouse gases, ever present in our atmos-
phere, maintains the temperature so that man and
other organisms can live.
However, with the advent of the Industrial
Revolution during the 1800's, man has been a signifi-
cant part in this climate cycle. The emissions from
industries, transportation, agricultural lands, among
other things, have increased the level of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere, so that the natural warming
is enhanced. The rapid change in technology contin-
ues to send out other emissions that may stay in the
atmosphere for another 50 or 100 years.
The projection for global increase in temperature
is from 1.4 to 5.8 Celsius for the 21
st
century. How-
ever, climate change is not uniform throughout the
globe. These changes may be dependent on such
factors as each region's unique microclimate, topog-
raphy, prevailing force, and its latitudinal properties.
The study of regional circulations and perturbations
still remains largely unexplored. However, it is at this
level where the changes in climate will be most felt.
Vulnerability and adaptation assessments will have to
be done on a local/regional basis. Therefore, visuali-
zation of the possible range of climate change on a
local/regional is needed to aid policy makers in
making the necessary adaptation measures.
The developed countries have developed several
General Circulation Models (GCMs) based on the
Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) con-
ceptualized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-
mate Change (IPCC). The SRES is a set of scenarios
wherein projections of non-climatic events, such as
changes in demography, socio-economic conditions,
and technology, are translated into emission, which in
turn affect the climate. Four sets of scenarios are de-
veloped. These are the A1, A2, B1, and B2. A sche-
matic presentation of these scenarios is shown in Fig.
1. No probability is assigned to any one scenario;
however, based on the underlying themes, the sce-
narios arranged according to conservatism of emis-
sions (and subsequent effect on climate change) are
B1, B2, A1, and A2, with B1 as the most conserva-
tive.
Figure 1 Schematic representation of the four
Special Report on Emissions Scenarios
As a developing country, the Philippines lacks the
capability and manpower to develop its own Regional
Climate Models. Data will have to be downscaled
from the results of General Circulation Models
(GCMs). Three different models were studied, among
these are those developed by the Hadley Centre for
Climate Prediction and Research (HadCM3), Austra-
lia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Re-
search Organisation (CSIRO) and Canadian Center
for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCC). These
are based on the Special Reports on Emissions Sce-
narios (SRES), a set of scenarios wherein projections
of non-climatic events, such as changes in demogra-
phy, socio-economic conditions, and technology, are
quantified and translated into emissions, which in
turn affect the climate.
2. Methodology
Gridded monthly projections of temperature and
precipitation for the years 2001 to 2110 were ac-
quired via the IPCC-DDC GCM Archive Gateway
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Data
Distribution Centre) at http://ipcc-
ddc.cru.uea.ac.uk/dkrz/dkrz.htm. The monthly mean
values for the years 1961-90, which serves as the
baseline value for the different models were also ac-
quired.
Three models were studied. These are models
developed by the Hadley Centre for Climate Predic-
tion and Research (HadCM3), Australia's Common-
wealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisa-
tion (CSIRO) and Canadian Center for Climate Mod-
elling and Analysis (CGCM2ma). Time and com-
puter resource limitations dictated that most models
could only run A2 and B2 scenarios. The only model
with a complete set of scenarios is the CSIRO model,
so that projections and succeeding applications are
limited to this model.
The data acquired were then converted to a for-
mat that can be used for GrADS (Grid Analysis and
Display System). Data for the Philippines was ex-
tracted. Climate conditions for the years 2020, 2050,
and 2080 were then computed by getting the average
of thirty years centering on these years. So that, 2020
is the average from 2006 to 2035; 2050, average of
the years 2036 to 2065, and 2080, the average of the
years 2066 to 2095.
Two climate variables, temperature and precipi-
tation, are studied. These two are considered among
the primary climate variables where secondary vari-
ables are derived. Conditions of these two variables
and consequent changes determine the impacts on the
different sectors, namely agriculture, water resources,
health, and marine and coastal areas; so that changes
directly affect the human dimension.
2.1 Projected Values
2.1.1 Temperature
The Philippines lies on the equatorial region,
with present temperature values ranging from 20 to
25 Celsius. The baseline temperature trend in the
country is one that does not vary greatly throughout
the year. For this reason, separate analyses of tem-
perature conditions during the dry and rainy season
are not required. Instead, the temperature variance
focuses largely on the change in annual mean tem-
perature.
The study of change in annual mean temperature
is important in envisioning future Philippine climate
conditions. Change in temperature, aside from af-
fecting secondary climate variables, also directly af-
fects precipitation. Any sudden, long-term change in
temperature can be expected to greatly affect the dif-
ferent sectors.
Projections of temperature values were compared
with the baseline temperature values of the different
models to determine the projected change in tem-
perature.
2.1.2 Precipitation
The Philippines has two dominant seasons. The
dry season occurs predominantly from the months of
December to February. At this time of the year, flow
pattern comes from the Northeast, bringing with it
dry, cold wind. The Southwestern monsoon occurs
from the months of J une to August. This time of the
year is considered the rainy season in most parts of
the country. Precipitation conditions between these
two seasons are significantly distinct. Establishment
of the changes in the coming years is important to
determine the extent of the preparation needed to
these changes. Sectoral activities, such as agricultural
planning, depend mainly on the occurrence, duration,
and magnitude of these two seasons.
Analysis of the projected changes of the different
scenarios during the dry and rainy season was done.
The projected climate conditions (average for 30
years) were compared with the baseline of each
model. Percent change was obtained by subtracting
these projected values from the base values, and di-
viding the result by the base value. The results of the
different models were then compared to determine
whether changes are scenario-based or model-based.
2.2 Baseline
Climate models have its own assumptions about
prevailing conditions in the area that it is studying.
Global models, due to the size of its spatial and tem-
poral coverage, have even more generalized premises
in order to simplify computations. Thus, determining
the models' limitations is important in finding out if it
agrees with assumptions that can be applied to the
Philippines. To illustrate; some models assume a flat
terrain due to the ratio of the size of the Philippines
on a global context. However, focusing on a smaller
scale will prove that the Philippine's distinct topogra-
phy is a major factor in its unique climate.
Another important factor to consider is its ability
to simulate present-day (baseline) climate conditions.
Conformity of the baselines of the different models
with finer-grid resolution baselines,
such as the internationally established DDC baseline,
is important in determining which model closely
simulates present-day conditions, and which is model
is the most consistent.
A direct comparison of the contour graphs of the
DDC, and the models' baselines was done. For a
more detailed analysis, the mean values over the area
were calculated and compared with each other. For
temperature, mean annual conditions were studied;
while mean values during the two seasons (dry, De-
cember to February; and rainy, J une to August) were
compared.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1 Temperature
Average temperature conditions over the entire
Philippines for the different models is shown in Fig.
2A. Based on the graph, the model which has the
closest magnitude to the DDC baseline is the CCC
model. However, this models proves to be inconsis-
tent such that temperature is understated during the
early part of the year, while it is overstated during the
latter part of the year. The result is that this model
incorrectly predicts the warmest month of the year
during J uly. Both the CSIRO and the HadCM model
overstate temperature throughout the year, though the
model which follows similar pattern as the DDC is
the CSIRO model.
Projections of temperature for the CSIRO model
for the A2 scenario is shown in Fig. 3a-c. The graphs
confirm the long-term assumption that global warm-
ing will occur, and will accelerate in the 21
st
century.
The CSIRO projects an almost uniform increase of
0.6 Celsius throughout the country from the baseline
to 2020. An increase of about 0.5 will again occur
from 2020 to 2050, while the rate of projected in-
crease from 2050 to 2080 is 1 throughout the coun-
try.
3.2 Precipitation
Baseline precipitation values of the different
models and the DDC baseline are shown in Fig. 2B.
Both the CSIRO and the CCC models show good
correlation to the DDC baseline in terms of magni-
tude. However, these two models overstated precipi-
tation during the dry season, and understate it during
the rainy season. The result is that there is little vari-
ance in rainfall throughout the year. The HadCM
model, on the other hand, overstates rainfall through-
out the year. However, it proves to the most consis-
tent model, such that rainfall trend of this model is
similar to the DDC baseline.
Changes in precipitation for the dry season of the
HadCM model is shown in Fig. 4. Based on the fig-
ure, the area which seems to be the most affected is
the Southwestern Luzon region, where rainfall is ex-
pected to continuously decrease throughout the cen-
tury, where the decrease reaches up to 43 percent in
the dry season. The other areas on the other hand,
will experience a slight increase in rainfall, until the
2050's wherein rainfall seems to decrease throughout
the country.
Changes in precipitation for the rainy season of
the HadCM model is shown in Figure 5.During the
early part of the century, at 2020, most areas will
experience only very slight changes in rainfall, ex-
cept near the Southwestern Luzon region, where rain-
fall is projected to increase by 20 percent. During the
year 2050 and 2080, however, the entire country will
experience a significant increase in rainfall.
4. Conclusions
GCMs provide a whole range of temperature and
precipitation change that can be expected in the next
century. However, it is important to understand the
limitations of the models in order to know how best
to apply these models to Vulnerability, Impacts, and
Adaptation Studies to the Philippine scenario.
Among the different models studied, the CSIRO
model, seems to be the best model to use for tem-
perature studies. This model's baseline has the best
correlation to the DDC baseline. For precipitation,
the model with the baseline which has the best corre-
spondence with the DDC baseline is the HadCM
model.
Temperature is expected to be warmer in the
next century by as much as 2.4 C. For precipitation,
the dry season is expected to get drier while the rainy
season is projected to become rainier.
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Figure 3 Projected change in temperature (in C) of the CSIRO model for the A2 scenario for the years 2020,
2050, and 2080.

Figure 4 Projected change in precipitation (in percent) for the dry season (December to February) of the
HadCM model for the A2 scenario for the years 2020, 2050, and 2080.
Figure 5 Projected change in precipitation (in percent) for the rainy season (June to August) of the HadCM
model for the A2 scenario for the years 2020, 2050, and 2080.
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Figure 2 Monthly Baseline values of the different models and the DDC for (a) temperature and (b) precipitation.
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