Assessing Past and Future Temperature‐ and Precipitation‐Based Indicators in the Republic of Yemen

ABSTRACT The Republic of Yemen faces a critical gap in climate studies. This is partially attributed to a sparse observational network, inconsistent data records, institutional challenges, and protracted conflicts. All this exacerbates the country's vulnerability to climate change and hinders the development of a National Climate Change Plan or Strategy. To address these challenges, this study relies on state‐of‐the‐art climate datasets, namely the ERA5 reanalysis and climate model simulations from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX)‐Coordinated Output for Regional Evaluations (CORE) ensemble, composed of two regional climate models (RCMs) driven by three Global Climate Models (GCMs), and analyses precipitation‐ and temperature‐based indicators over 1980–2100. Our results show significant changes in precipitation‐ and temperature‐related indicators historically and in the future. For the historical period (1980–2005), statistically significant trends are mostly found for temperature indices such as the number of summer days (SU) and the number of tropical nights (TR), which have increased, respectively, at a rate of 2–4 and 1.5–2.5 events per year. Future projections point to an increase in the number of dry days (DD), the maximum number of consecutive dry days (CDD), the number of high precipitation events (R20), SU, TR and heatwaves by 2070–2099, especially under a strong Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP 8.5). In particular, an increase of 5–20 DD per year is expected in the Highlands, whereas dry spells might be 10–30 days longer in the Internal Plateau and eastern Yemen. High precipitation events might be also more frequent in western Highlands, with an increase of 1.5–2.5 days per year. These findings are not only valuable for the Civil Aviation and Meteorology Authority (CAMA), but are also intended to assist policymakers, development agencies, and academia in formulating climate‐informed actions for Yemen, a country with limited historical and future high‐resolution climate data available until this work.