IDENTIFYING PRECIPITATION TRENDS UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE IN UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

Anthropogenic climate change is known to affect the Earth’s weather and water cycle in unpredictable ways. In future decades, many regions will either face increased flooding or drought as a direct consequence of climate change. Previous studies have forecasted increased precipitation and flooding in the southeast United States over the next few decades, but broad-scale studies lack the precision needed for regional or local decision-making. Upstate South Carolina is a hub of commercial activity and growth in the southeast United States, and is therefore particularly vulnerable to high-cost damages from extreme precipitation events. To determine the extent to which climate change will affect precipitation in this region, we used the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) dataset downscaled using the localized constructed analogs (LOCA) statistical method to obtain a precise precipitation dataset of the study area from 1950 to 2100. Results show increases in average annual precipitation across all three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP-245, SSP-370, SSP-585). Extreme precipitation events are notably higher across SSP-370 and SSP-585. Increases in daily maximum values are greatest in SSP-585 by the end of the century, while SSP-245 shows trends comparable to historical values. Rather than a drying climate, this indicates that climate change does lead to increased average annual precipitation rate in Upstate South Carolina, and suggests that the amount of flood-determining extreme precipitation events are steadily rising across the region.