Climate change impact projections at the catchment scale in Tunisia using the multi-model ensemble mean approach

In this work, we developed a mean projection for climate change and assessed its impact on some hydro-meteorological indicators relevant to climatic condition, precipitation extremes magnitude and frequency for the Siliana catchment in Tunisia based on an ensemble of seven combinations of global circulation models (GCMs) and regional climate models (RCMs) derived from the EU-FP6 ENSEMBLES project. We performed quantile-based mapping (QM) bias correction technique of climate model projection using local observations. Because there is no warranty that the best climate model based on its performances in reproducing historic climate will be superior to other models in simulating future climate, we used the multi-model ensemble (MME) mean approach to derive a mean projection as the best guess for climate change projection for the Siliana catchment. We also quantified the uncertainty of the MME in the projected change in the selected indicators by comparing their values in the reference period (1981–2010) to these in the future period (2041–2070). Results reveal that the Siliana catchment will be prone to drier and warmer climate in the future with less rainy days for each month. The uncertainty associated with the MME projection suggests that no clear general tendency for extreme rainy days in the future is expected. These findings highlight the need to consider an ensemble of multi-climate models with an uncertainty framework if reliable climate change impact study is sought at the catchment scale.