Sensitivity of methods for estimating potential evapotranspiration to climate change

Global climate change occurs because of the addition of absorbing gases into the atmosphere, which can be interpreted as the greenhouse effect. Changes that occur in temperature will be followed by changes in other climatic elements, including rainfall, solar radiation, air humidity, and wind speed. The purpose of this study is to determine the sensitivity of potential evapotranspiration calculation methods to climate change and to determine the diversity of results based on differences in the calculation structure and the needed data. The utilized methods to estimate the sensitivity of potential evapotranspiration (ETp) to climate change were the Thornthwaite, Blaney-Criddle, FAO without correction, Makkink, Ivanov, Hargreaves-74, Modified Penman, and Penman-Monteith methods. The analysis was carried out using climate data from three climatological station locations in Central Sulawesi, which are the Singkoyo, Kulawi, and Bora Stations. The calculation results showed that the Thornthwaite and Blaney-Criddle methods were relatively the most sensitive to temperature changes, followed by the Penman-Monteith, Ivanov, Hargreaves 74, and Modified Penman methods. The FAO and Makkink methods showed relatively little sensitivity.