Using the MIROC-ESM Model to Investigate the Hydro-Climatic Conditions of the Small-Scale Watershed under the Impact of Climate Change

Climatic paleontology evidences that climate change has always been present throughout the history of the planet, but the climatic changes of the last century have two distinct features, as compared with past climatic changes. First, human activities play a greater role in the nature of the current climate change. Second, the speed of recent climatic changes is greater, so that, a lot of changes will be occurring in the Earth's atmosphere during a short term (Telmer et al. 2004). Nowadays, global warming has significant effects on precipitation and runoff yield and water resources due to the increased concentration of greenhouse gases (Pervez and Henebry 2015). The average of climatic variables, especially the components of temperature, precipitation and runoff in the annual or seasonal scale, play a predominant role in the hydrological cycle and usually used as an indicator for assessing the climate change on the available water resources of Iran now and especially in the future (Afshar et al. 2017). A number of studies have been done to investigate the impact of climate change on the hydrological components of watersheds in Iran on the basis of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report models (AR4). These models together with older emission scenarios have less resolution, in comparison with the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) models. Thus, climate change studies with higher resolution climate models under the new emission scenarios (RCPs) of the AR5 seem necessary in the watersheds of Iran. Zoshk-Abardeh is one of the important sources of income for the regional villagers and has a high ecotourism potential in Khorasan Razavi Province, Iran. It is considered as an urban watershed and according to the historical evidence has a high flood potential, as well. Therefore, the identification of climate change effects on the hydrologic regime of this watershed is necessary for water resource planners.