Kok Weng TAN & Phui Nying LOH
Faculty of Engineering and Green Technology, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Bandar Barat, 31900 Kampar Perak MALAYSIA, tankokweng@utar.edu.my;

CLIMATE CHANGE ASSESSMENT ON RAINFALL AND TEMPERATURE IN CAMERON HIGHLANDS, MALAYSIA, USING REGIONAL CLIMATE DOWNSCALING METHOD

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Series of massive flood disasters which occurred in Malaysia’s highlands region has raised the concern of local community to water resources planning and management. Well-determined of climate change model on rainfall and temperature can be an important component on water resources management strategy to mitigate the disaster impacts. Cameron Highlands has been selected as the study area to conduct a climate change projection (1980-2069). Downscaled regional climate model (RCM) was used to project Cameron Highlands’ temperature and precipitation. Bias correction was applied on the simulated model to remove common projection model errors. Based on the RCM outcomes, the maximum, minimum and mean temperatures showed an ascendant tendency with rate of 3.8°, 1.8° and 2.8°C in 100 years’ time. The annual precipitation indicated a rise in rainfall amount of 2.32 mm per year (23.2 mm per 10 years or 231.8 mm per 100 years, respectively). Both precipitation and temperature parameters showed a positive gradient which means there would be heavier rainfall and increment in the average temperature in Cameron Highlands. These changes bring drastic impacts especially to water resources such as water shortage during the dry season in local farms and tea plantation estates and massive flooding that occurred during the rainy season. Further study was also identified to develop an integrated decision-making support system based on climate projection scenario that important enhancing policy development process.