What is and What Will Be? The Future of Climate Through Climate Modelling: A Study from Sub-tropical Region (Pakistan)

The regional climate models are developed to assess the future trends of the climatic regimes and provide fine-scale information which is applied to check the vulnerability, impacts and adaptation in regard to climate change. The sub-tropical regions worldwide and specifically in Pakistan house a considerable diversity of faunal elements which is subjected to adverse impacts of climate change. Thus, we aim to provide here the details of upcoming climate change in sub-tropical regions of Pakistan (Chakwal and Jhelum) and its possible impacts on the recent mammalian communities of the area. For this purpose, different climatic models including RegCM4.4, CMIP5, and GCMs under the Coordinated Regional Climate Down-scaling Experiment (CORDEX) framework for the South Asian (SA) domain were used. We found that over the upcoming years (by 2099), the precipitation will slightly increase for a shorter Monsoon timespan, which may support a C3 ecosystem where browsers will be at an advantage (future Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP) > 900 mm/year). However, the current MAP is below 900 mm/year which supports a diversity of vegetation and available habitats to the mammals. Furthermore, a steady increase in the Mean Annual Temperature (MAT) was noted which may impact the faunal diversity of the region. The bovids, suids and rodents can bear the temperature elevation as they witness higher temperatures in other parts of the country as well. However, cervids in the region are already “nearly threatened” and may further be at a disadvantage due to climatic change and temperature elevation. The current MAT of the region is slightly below 22 °C; however, after three decades, it may rise above 25 °C ultimately threatening the extant diversity of the mammals of the region.