Quantifying the possible impacts of climate change on temperature-humidity index, (THI) under RCP scenarios across Iran

The temperature humidity index (THI) is one of the measures which describe the climatic discomfort as a result of combined effects of temperature and humidity. This index provides a rapid and accurate evaluation of heat stress effect on animal’s health and productions. Considering the sequences of global warming and climate change, it is expected that THI values would vary due to changes in temperature and humidity in coming decades. As the soft computing skills increased in recent decades, more number of climate models has been developed for weather and climate predictions which have significantly improved the quality and resolution of projections. This remarkable increase in number of climate models has enabled the scientists to estimate a wide range of main climate variables such as humidity and temperature in fine temporal and spatial resolution. Upon release of new scenarios based on Radiative Forcing which are known as Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios (RCP scenarios), by Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) in fifth assessment report (AR5), a new set of climate models (GCMs) have been proposed for future climate projections. The main aim of this study is to investigate the temporal and spatial variations of THI values in selected weather stations across Iran as a result of climate change under RCP climatic scenarios proposed in fifth assessment report (AR5) of IPCC.