Trends and amount changes of temperature and precipitation under future projections in high–low groups and intra-period for the Eastern Black Sea, the Wettest Basin in Türkiye

Abstract This study investigates the possible effects of climate change on temperature and precipitation variables in the Eastern Black Sea Basin, Türkiye’s wettest and flood-prone region. The outputs of three GCMs under historical, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 scenarios were downscaled to regional scale using the multivariate adaptive regression splines method. The future monthly temperature and precipitation for 12 stations in the basin were projected for three periods: the 2030s (2021–2050), 2060s (2051–2080), and 2090s (2081–2100). In addition to relative changes, high and low groups and intra-period trends were analyzed for the first time using innovative methods. For the pessimistic scenario, an increase of 3.5 °C in the interior and 3.0 °C in the coastal areas of the basin is projected. For the optimistic scenario, these values are expected to be 2.5 and 2.0 °C, respectively. A decrease in precipitation is projected for the interior region, and a significant increase is expected for the eastern and coastal areas of the basin, especially in spring. This result indicates that floods will occur frequently coastal areas of the basin in the coming periods. Also, although the monotonic trends of temperatures during periods are higher than precipitation in interior regions, these regions may have more uncertainty as their trends are in different directions of low and high groups of different scenarios and GCMs and contribute to all trends, especially precipitation.