Projection of Potential Evapotranspiration for North Korea Based on Selected GCMs by TOPSIS

This study projected future changes in potential evapotranspiration (PET) over North Korea, which has been exposed to climate change risks. For this purpose, climate change scenarios downscaled at station scale were produced under RCP8.5, which downscale method preserves the long-term trend driven by climate models. Based on the ability to replicate observation, representative climate change scenarios (RCCS) were selected using performance indicators and TOPSIS method. The GCMs having higher spatial resolution were selected as RCCS, and projected that PET would increase in the future. It is found that the inter-model variability of PET in the summer was gradually increased over North Korea and annual mean evapotranspiration would be expected to increase by 1.4 times (F1, 2011–2040), 2.0 times (F2, 2041–2070) and 2.6 times (F3, 2071–2100). In preparation for the deficit of available water due to the increase in evapotranspiration, securing alternative water resources and construction of multi-purpose dams are required.