Southeast Asia is one of the world’s regions most vulnerable to climate change impacts with low-lying land, more severe floods and
droughts, larger populations, higher dependency on agriculture for
the economic sector, and low resilience of communities. Therefore,
a study on how future climate change will affect this region has been
conducted, and the results are provided in this paper. Projected
surface temperatures and total precipitation from the baseline
period of 2013 up to 2100 for Southeast Asia were investigated using
the Global Climate Model (GCM) and the Weather Research Forecast
(WRF) v3.9.1.1 modelling systems under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 future
climate scenarios. The results showed that future temperatures
were projected to increase under both climate scenarios RCP4.5
and RCP8.5; however, precipitation was projected to decrease. The
temperature was projected to increase by 0.93◦C and 2.50◦C under
RCP4.5 and 8.5. Meanwhile, precipitation greatly varied under the
RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 climate scenarios in both monsoonal seasons.
We conclude that the change in climate variables, particularly
the temperature and precipitation, could potentially increase the
vulnerability of this region.
