Abstract. It is a matter of current study to determine potential climate changes in different parts of the world, especially in regions like a basin which has the potential to affect socioeconomic and environmental issues in a defined area. This study provides a comparison between several climate change indices trends of two very different basins in Mexico, one located in the northern arid region (the Conchos River basin) and the other in the southern humid area (the Usumacinta River basin). First, quality control, homogenization, and completion of the missing data were applied before calculating the climate change indices and their respective trends for the combined period 1961–1994. A clear warming signal was found for the two basins in addition to an increment in the DTR, in agreement with other studies in Mexico. Also, the Conchos River basin was found to be more humid and the Usumacinta River basin drier, in accordance to a supposed seesaw behavior indicated in previous analysis.

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This study analyzes the mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures and precipitation trends in southeast Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula, Central America and the Caribbean regions. The Climate Research Unit (CRU) TS 4.01, with a spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5°, was the database used in this research. The trends of the four selected climate variables cover the period from 1960 to 2016. The results obtained show a clear and consistent warming trend, at a rate of about 0.01 °C/year for the entire study region. These results are consistent with some previous studies and the IPCC reports. While the trends of precipitation anomalies are slightly positive (~0.1 mm/year) for southeast Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula and almost the entire Caribbean, for Central America (CA) the trends are negative. The study also presents the correlation between temperatures and precipitation versus El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) drivers, indicating global warming and frequency signals from the climate drivers. In terms of the near future (2015–2039), three Representative Concentration Pathways (RPC) show the same trend of temperature increase as the historical record. The RCP 6.0 has trends similar to the historical records for CA and southeast Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula, while the Caribbean corresponds to RCP 4.5. In terms of the far-future (2075–2099), RCP 6.0 is more ad-hoc for southeastern Mexico-Yucatan Peninsula, and RCP 8.5 corresponds to Central America. These results could help to focus actions and measures against the impacts of climate change in the entire study region.

One of the main current challenges is detecting changes in the climate at the regional level. The present study tried to address this issue by looking for some influence of large-scale climate oscillations on the climate of a small and complex topography basin in Central Mexico. We collected temperature and precipitation data from 44 climate stations within an area of up to 20 km around the Apatlaco River sub-basin (~30 km south of Mexico City) during the period 1950–2013. Posteriorly, quality analysis and homogenization of the climate databases were performed by using the Climatol algorithm. We analyzed the trend of five ETCCDI climate indices through several statistical tests. Finally, we calculated simple Pearson correlations of those indices with four climate oscillation indices that have affected Mexico’s climate in the recent past. The results revealed that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation had a clear influence on four of the five indices analyzed in the study area. The summer days and the extreme maximum and minimum temperatures accounted for a small increase in the temperature of the middle east (urban) basin compared to the middle west (rural), which could be a manifestation of the heat island effect or the difference in soil type (and therefore albedo) of the two zones. As expected, the midsummer drought effect predominated in most of the sub-basin, with only the uppermost part showing monsoon-type precipitation during a typical year.

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