Received: 7 May 2021 Revised: 28 August 2021 Accepted: 7 September 2021 Published on: 23 September 2021

DOI: 10.1002/joc.7386

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Differences in multi-model ensembles of CMIP5 and CMIP6

projections for future droughts in South Korea

Young Hoon Song1 | Shamsuddin Shahid2 | Eun-Sung Chung1

1
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Seoul
National University of Science and
Technology, Nowon-gu, Seoul, Korea
2
School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering, Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Correspondence
Eun-Sung Chung, Faculty of Civil
Engineering, Seoul National University of
Science and Technology, 232 Gongneung-
ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul 01811, Korea.
Email: eschung@seoultech.ac.kr
Funding information
K-water, Grant/Award Number: D-W-004
Abstract
This study quantified the uncertainties of future drought projections in the
South Korea case by means of the reliability ensemble averaging (REA) of
10 GCM equivalents of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phases
5 and 6 (CMIP5 and CMIP6). Two meteorological drought indices, the Stan-
dardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation-
Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) for Representative Concentration Pathway
(RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5 of CMIP5 and Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP)
2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 of CMIP6 were considered. The GCMs' performances for
the historical period were evaluated, and their biases were corrected using qua-
ntile mapping. The multi-model ensemble (MME) means of the GCMs were
generated using the entropy and TOPSIS methods. The results showed that the
TOPSIS MME estimated more intense droughts than the entropy MME. The
levels of SPI and SPEI severity estimated using the entropy MME were higher
than those from the TOPSIS MME. The SPI and SPEI outcomes of RCP4.5
were much more robust than those of SSP2-4.5. The projected drought severity
in the near future was much greater than in the far future, while the reliability
of drought projections in the far future was much higher than in the near
future. The reliability levels of drought projections for the SSP scenarios were
higher than for the RCPs for most durations. This study can support planning
and management of future droughts considering uncertainty variables.

KEYWORDS
CMIP6, entropy, reliability ensemble averaging, shared socioeconomic pathways, TOPSIS

1 | INTRODUCTION altered the spatial and temporal patterns of precipitation

Because drought has a lasting impact on agriculture, the
economy, and the environment and nature, it is often
more devastating than any other natural hazard. Cumu-
lative agricultural production losses due to droughts
amounted to nearly US$166 billion during 1983–2009
(Kim et al., 2019). Conforti et al. (2018) estimated US$29
billion losses in developing countries due to droughts
during the period of 2005–2015. Global warming has
and temperature, outcomes which in turn have increased
the frequency and severity of hydrological disasters
(Asdak et al., 2018; Shiru et al., 2018; Alamgir et al. 2019;
Ayugi et al. 2020; Khan et al., 2020; Salman et al., 2020).
Droughts are more sensitive to climate change among
the hydrological disasters due to their complex relation-
ship with multiple climate factors (Kim et al., 2021; Cook
et al., 2020; Berg et al., 2017; Lemordant et al., 2018;
Mankin et al., 2017). Therefore, climate change has

2688 © 2021 Royal Meteorological Society wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joc Int J Climatol. 2022;42:2688–2716.


SONG ET AL.
increased droughts globally over the past few decades
(Song et al., 2020).
Most climate model simulations indicate a future
increase in drought frequency across the globe due to cli-
mate change. Wang et al. (2021) analysed global drought
characteristics using newly released global climate
models (GCMs). They showed increases in drought recur-
rence, durations and areal coverage areas in most parts of
the globe. Pokhrel et al. (2021) showed that global land
areas under extreme drought would increase from 3% at
present to 7% by the end of this century, meaning that 8%
of the global population would live in extreme drought
conditions. There will be some geographical variability of
drought hot spots due to spatially varying changes in the
global climate. Spinoni et al. (2020) showed East Asian
countries would be among the possible drought hot spots
due to global climate change. Liu and Chen (2021) evalu-
ated the socioeconomic risk of drought due to climate
change and revealed East Asia as being among the high
socioeconomic risk regions of global climate change-
induced drought.
As a country in East Asia, South Korea has frequently
experienced drought due to the variability of the East
Asian monsoon. Droughts in South Korea arise on both
shorter and longer time scales, but shorter periods of
drought are more recurrent. However, the country has
also experienced several droughts of longer durations due
to the consecutive failure of summer rainfall for two or
more years. The most recent drought in 2013–2015 led to
abnormal stress on the water resources of South Korea
(Kwon et al., 2016). Climate change effect on drought
characteristics is already noticeable on the Korean penin-
sula (Oh et al., 2014). Park et al. (2020) reported more
severe droughts in East Asia, including South Korea,
when estimating future emission scenarios.
Long-term water management plans and strategies
are required to cope with the water crisis intensified by
climate change. A better understanding of possible spa-
tiotemporal changes in drought conditions is essential for
this purpose. Therefore, projecting the trends and sever-
ity levels of future droughts is a hot topic in drought
research. The emission scenario of coupled model
intercomparison projects (CMIPs) can provide a climate
factor to assist with projections of future droughts. Previ-
ous studies showed higher resolution GCMs provide
more realistic precipitation projections (Wehner
et al., 2014). A comprehensive study of the extreme pre-
cipitation indices of the CMIP5 model showed a better
representation of the precipitation characteristics due to
their higher resolution than the CMIP3 models, while the
uncertainty was similar (Sillmann et al., 2013; Gibson
et al., 2019; Taylor et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2014). The
average CMIP6 GCMs' resolution is higher resolution
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2689
than their CMIP5 counterparts. The CMIP6 GCMs also
differ from CMIP5 in enhanced approximation of micro-
physical processes and incorporation of multiple Earth
processes, like biogeochemical cycles and ice sheets
(Eyring et al., 2016). This has made CMIP6 more capable
of reliable climate projections and estimating climate
change impacts on different hydrological processes like
drought. The release of the CMIP3 GCM in 2007 acceler-
ated drought research across the globe. Many studies
using CMIP3 GCMs projected an increase in drought fre-
quency and severity levels in the future in different
regions (Sheffield and Wood, 2007; Hernandez and
Uddameri 2014). CMIP5 provided GCM simulations of
radiative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios to
assess future climates over a broader range than those
used in CMIP3 scenarios. Most studies using CMIP5 pro-
jected increasing droughts over different regions of the
globe due to continuously rising temperatures (Wang and
Chen, 2014; Shiru et al., 2020; Khan et al., 2020). CMIP6
projections differ from those of CMIP5 in terms of future
scenarios. CMIP6 employs the shared socioeconomic
pathway (SSP) for future climate projections.
The SSP scenario considers future socioeconomic fac-
tors such as ecosystems, resources, and populations to
estimate future climates. They also include mitigation
and adaptation efforts concerning climate change
(O'Neill et al., 2016). Therefore, SSP scenarios can pro-
vide more realistic climate predictions than other scenar-
ios. Currently, many studies on climate change based on
SSP scenarios are underway (Global: Kim et al., 2020;
Fan et al., 2020; China: Wu et al., 2019, South Korea:
Song et al., 2021a; Kim et al., 2021, Africa: Almazroui
et al., 2020, Iran: Zamani et al., 2020, and US: Srivastava
et al., 2020). Several recent studies also used SSP scenar-
ios for drought projections (Ukkola et al., 2020; Su
et al., 2021). However, most of these previous studies on
drought projections were mainly based on the outputs of
CMIP3 and CMIP5, while studies considering CMIP6
future scenarios are insufficient. Therefore, drought
assessments using the SSP scenario and comparisons of
drought severity levels and trends relative to those in pre-
vious versions can lead to a better understanding of
future droughts. The combination of RCP and SSP can
improve knowledge of future climate change (Eyring
et al., 2016; O'Neill et al., 2016).
The GCM combining method known as the multi-
model ensemble (MME) method is frequently used to
project future climates. However, one issue when using
MME is the removal of errors due to the averaging of
GCM values (Knutti et al. 2010). Many studies have rec-
ommended quantifying weights to assign or exclude low
weights for relatively less relevant GCMs (Ahmed
et al. 2019; Shiru et al. 2019). Therefore, appropriate

2690
performance metrics and decision-making techniques
should be selected, followed by a discussion and compar-
ative analysis of the applied historical and projected cli-
mate trends.
GCM projections are uncertain due to errors arising
from the model structure, the scenario considered, and
the initial conditions (Woldemeskel et al., 2014). Ghosh
and Mujumdar (2007) asserted that the output of GCM is
a source of high uncertainty due to the incomplete
knowledge of future scenarios and physical processes that
are uncertain. Therefore, predicted future droughts using
GCM necessarily contain uncertainty. The uncertainty in
GCM-based drought projection is primarily a discrepancy
in the magnitudes and signs of precipitation changes and
the magnitude of warming (Trenberth et al., 2014). Some
studies comparing drought predictions obtained using
different drought indices found that the estimation
method for drought characteristics can lead to uncer-
tainty in drought predictions for future periods
(Keyantash and Dracup, 2002; Mo, 2008; Dai, 2010).
The purpose of the present study is to compare the
spatiotemporal changes pertaining to SPI and SPEI
droughts based on the MME outcomes of 10 common
CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs for the near (2025–2060) and
far (2065–2100) futures in South Korea. MME was con-
structed using entropy weights and the technique for
order of preference by similarity to ideal solution
(TOPSIS), based on two evaluation metrics. The reliabil-
ity ensemble average (REA) method was employed to
analyse the uncertainty in projected droughts for near
(2025–2060) and far (2065–2100) futures relative to the
historical mean. The results of this study can help to
develop confidence in outcomes from CMIP6 GCMs for
drought impact assessments and can also be used to
streamline adaptation measures formulated based on
RCP scenarios.
2 | S T UDY A R E A AN D D AT A
2.1 | Study area
South Korea (35
500 N, 127
000 W) lies between Japan and
China. The country has four distinct seasons: winter
(DJF), spring (MAM), summer (JJA), and autumn (SON).
The average annual precipitation is between 1,000 and
1,600 mm. The majority of precipitation occurs in sum-
mer, while winter is the driest season. Drought occurs
mainly in spring due to failure in summer precipitation
and gradually worsens in winter. The average tempera-
ture of the country ranges from 10 to 15
C. Monthly pre-
cipitation and average temperature data observed at
22 stations were collected from the Korea Meteorological
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
Administration (KMA) for this study. The basis of choos-
ing the stations is the availability of monthly data for a
longer period without missing values. The selected sta-
tions are exposed to various disasters, such as floods,
heavy snow and droughts. Therefore, drought projections
at the selected stations can provide a regional assessment.
In this study, the 22 stations selected were divided into
four regions (Northwest (NW), Northeast (NE), South-
west (SW), and Southeast (SE)), as shown in Figure 1.
2.2 | Dataset and sources
This study used 10 GCMs available in both CMIP5 and
CMIP6. Table 1 presents the names of the GCMs, the model-
ling centres, and the resolutions. The resolutions of the
selected GCMs range from 0.93
to 2.81
. These 10 pairs of
CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs were selected as they have projec-
tions of all required variables for a drought analysis for differ-
ent SSP and RCP scenarios. Each GCM's monthly
precipitation, maximum temperature, and minimum tem-
perature hindcast for South Korea were evaluated for a com-
mon baseline period (1970–2005) of both CMIP5 and
CMIP6. The SSP scenarios include social and economic fac-
tors with radiative forcing from RCP (O'Neill et al., 2017).
The SenariosMIP, which improved the integrated assessment
model for multi-model climate projection, was based on CO2
emission and land-use changes (Riahi et al., 2015). Differ-
ent SSP scenarios are proposed according to adaptation
and mitigation intensity, such as SSP1-2.6, SS2-4.5,
SSP4-6.0, and SSP5-8.5 (O'Neill et al., 2016; Wang
et al., 2018). The projections for the SSP scenario allow
estimations of future energy and land-use changes based
on adaptation and mitigation levels (O'Neill et al., 2016).
Therefore, the SSP scenarios offer more realistic climate
projections. RCP4.5 assumes that gas emissions stabilize
by the middle of the 21st century, whereas RCP8.5 corre-
sponds to a nominal anthropogenic forcing of 8.5 Wm−2
until 2,100 (Riahi et al., 2015). SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 con-
sider similar emission levels to RCP4.5 and RCP8.5,
respectively (O'Neill et al., 2016). The RCP scenarios,
RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, and their equivalent SSP scenarios,
SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5, were used for drought projections.
3 | METHODOLOG Y
3.1 | Drought index
A drought can be meteorological, hydrological, or agri-
cultural. Most droughts occur due to a lack of water.
Therefore, droughts are sensitive to meteorological fac-
tors such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, and
 10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL. 2691

F I G U R E 1 Locations of the stations in South Korea used in the present study. The colour gradient represents the spatial variation in the
annual average precipitation and temperature during 1970–2005 [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

TABLE 1 Information about the GCMs used in this study

Resolution
Institute Models (longitude × latitude)
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial CMIP5 ACCESS1-3 1.25
× 1.875

Research Organisation, and Bureau of CMIP6 ACCESS-ESM1-5 1.25
× 1.875

Meteorology
Canadian Earth System Model version 5, CMIP5 CanESM2 2.81
× 2.81

Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and CMIP6 CanESM5 2.81
× 2.81

Analysis (Canada)
NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics CMIP5 GFDL-ESM2G 2.02
× 2.00

Laboratory, Climate Model version 4 (USA) CMIP6 GFDL-ESM4 1.25
× 1.00

NASA Goddard institute for Space Studies CMIP5 GISS-E2-R 2.0
× 2.5

CMIP6 GISS-E2-1-G 2.0
× 2.5

Institute for Numerical Mathematics, Russian CMIP5 INM-CM4 1.5
× 2.0

Academy of Science, (Russia) CMIP6 INM-CM4-8 1.5
× 2.0

Institut Pierre Simon Laplace CMIP5 IPSL-CM5A-LR 2.5
× 1.26

CMIP6 IPSL-CM6A-LR 2.5
× 1.26

Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The CMIP5 MIROC5 1.4
× 1.4

University of Tokyo CMIP6 MIROC6 1.4
× 1.4

Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) CMIP5 MPI-ESM-LR 1.125
× 1.12

(Germany) CMIP6 MPI-ESM1-2-LR 1.125
× 1.12

Meteorological Research Institute (Japan) CMIP5 MRI-CGCM3 1.125
× 1.07

CMIP6 MRI-ESM2-0 1.125
× 1.125

Norwegian Climate Centre (Norway) CMIP5 NorESM1-M 1.89
× 2.5

CMIP6 NorESM2-MM 1.25
× 0.9375

 10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2692 SONG ET AL.

temperature, highlighting the importance of drought esti-
mations based on meteorological factors. The complexity
and severity of droughts make it more difficult to identify
and assess drought characteristics. Therefore, drought
indices have been popularly used to evaluate and monitor
drought events. Among them, SPI and SPEI can better
a coefficient depending on I, and K is the latitude of the
observed data. Equation (4) is the difference between pre-
cipitation and evapotranspiration, where k is the time
scale (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2010).
X
k−1

represent various types of drought and reflect the charac-
teristics of droughts. SPI considers only precipitation and
is used to determine the frequency and severity of
droughts quantitatively (McKee et al. 1993). SPEI calcu-
lates the difference between precipitation and potential
evapotranspiration to assess droughts and thus also
includes soil moisture in drought estimations (Vicente-
Serrano et al., 2010). Therefore, many studies have used
both SPI and SPEI for drought analyses (Liu et al., 2021;
Labudova et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2017).
This study estimated drought severity levels using
both SPEI and SPI. The selected drought duration time-
scales in this study were 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. The
durations were selected considering the frequent occur-
rence of short-term droughts in the country. SPI, intro-
duced by McKee et al. (1995), quantifies drought at a
given timescale using a fitting distribution on precipita-
tion data. The two-parameter gamma probability distri-
bution function (pdf) is commonly used for SPI
estimation, considering its flexibility in representing pre-
cipitation time series (Karavitis et al., 2011; Shiau, 2020).
Therefore, SPI generally fits a gamma pdf to observed
precipitation data, as shown in Equation 1.
1 smoothing spline method of the non-parametric trans-
x α− 1e − β , x≥0
x
gðx Þ= α ð1Þ
β τ ðα Þ
Here, α and β are the shape and scale parameters, x is the
amount of precipitation, and τðαÞ is the gamma function.
The cumulative probability is transformed into the stan-
dard normal random variable z. The gamma distribution
is not defined for x =0 and q=Pðx =0Þ>0, where Pðx =0Þ
is the probability of zero precipitation. Therefore, the
cumulative pdf can be expressed using Equation (2).
Dkn = Pn − i −PET n − i ð4Þ
i=0
SPEI employs a procedure similar to that of SPI, using D
instead of rainfall to estimate droughts. Table 2 shows
the drought classifications based on SPI and SPEI.
3.2 | Quantile mapping
The GCM raw data does not fit the observed data. These
errors are due to the coarse spatial resolution, imperfect
process parameterization, and incomplete knowledge of
the climate system (Stevens and Bony, 2013; Teutschbein
and Seibert, 2012). Quantile mapping (QM) is a com-
monly used bias correction methods (Ringard et al., 2017;
Cannon et al., 2015). Therefore, the precipitation and
temperature outputs of CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs were
bias-corrected at the observed locations using the QM
method.
QM is a non-parametric transformation that esti-
mates the values of the empirical cumulative density
functions of observed and modelled time series for reg-
ularly spaced quantiles (Enayati et al., 2021). The
formation is fitted in a quantile to quantile manner
with the observed and modelled times series
(Kouhestani et al. 2016; Gudmundsson et al., 2012).
This study used the smoothing spline for bias correc-
tion, as shown below,
T A B L E 2 Classification of different drought severity levels
based on SPEI and SPI

Drought index Classification of drought (SPI

H ðx Þ =q + ð1 −qÞ × gðx Þ ð2Þ range and SPEI)
>2.00 Extremely wet
SPEI initially estimates the difference (D) between precipi-
1.50 to 1.99 Very wet
tation and potential evapotranspiration (PET). In this
1.00 to 1.49 Moderately wet
study, PET was calculated using the Thornthwaite method,
as expressed by Equation (3) (Thornthwaite, 1948), 0 to 0.99 Near normal
−0.99 to 0

m
16T −1.00 to −1.49 Moderately dry
PET = 16K , ð3Þ
I −1.50 to −1.99 Severely dry
−2.00 to −2.50 Extremely dry
where T is the monthly average temperature (
C), I is the
<−2.50 Very extremely dry
annual heat index obtained by summing the month, m is

SONG ET AL.
Po =F o− 1 ðF m ðPm ÞÞ, ð5Þ
where, m is GCM simulation data, o is observed data, Pm
is the simulated value in GCM, F m is the cumulative dis-
tribution of Pm , Po is the precipitation and temperature of
the station, and F o− 1 is the inverse of the cumulative dis-
tribution of Po . Afterwards, correction factors were
applied to correct the bias in the projected data (2020–
2100) at each station. The QM method has been
concluded as effective for bias corrections of GCM
simulations in South Korea (Song et al., 2020; Song
et al., 2021b).
3.3 | Inverse distance weight
Because GCM outputs are in the form of a grid, spatial
downscaling is needed to correct the difference between
the GCM simulation and station points. The IDW
method is frequently used for climate data interpolation
(Longley et al., 2005). It uses the concept that closer dis-
tances are more relevant than greater distances, is the
basis of the IDW concept (Tobler, 1970). Equation (6)
was used to interpolate the climate factors at the GCM
grids to the observed locations.
P
N normalized value for alternative a and w is the weight
ðwi × Z xi Þ
Pi = i = 1 ð6Þ
P
N
wi
i=1
Here, Pi is the observed data, Z x i represents the GCM-
simulated outputs at the grid points surrounding the
observed location, and wi is the interpolation weight, esti-
mated as the inverse of the distance between the observa-
tion location and the surrounding GCM grid points.
3.4 | Entropy weight
Shannon's entropy (Shannon, 1948), a statistical measure
of randomness, was used to generate the GCM MME
(Pomerol and Romero, 2000). The weights of the GCMs
were calculated using entropy to combine the GCM
ensembles of climate factors. The climate factor of each
GCM estimates inequality in a set of weights of individ-
ual GCMs based on the evaluation index results and dis-
tinguishes the relative performance between GCM
outputs. Entropy reaches its maximum value when the
weights are equally distributed among ensemble mem-
bers, according to Equation (7).
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2693
X
N
E= − wi lnwi ð7Þ
i=1
where wi is the weight assigned to each GCM and N is
the total number of ensemble members.
3.5 | TOPSIS
The technique for order of preference by similarity to
ideal solution (TOPSIS) is a multi-criteria decision analy-
sis (MCDA) method proposed by Hwang and Yoon (1981).
TOPSIS is based on the concept that an alternative
should have the shortest distance from a positive ideal
solution and the greatest distance from a negative ideal
solution (Chen and Hwang, 1992; Raju and
Kumar, 2010). Equations (8–10) show the TOPSIS calcu-
lation process, as formulated below.
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u l
uX
Da+ = t ðwi f i ðaÞ−wi f i Þ2 ð8Þ
j=1
Equation (7) serves to calculate the Euclidean distance of
each criterion from its positive ideal solution and sum-
ming the overall criteria for alternative a, where j is the
assigned to the criterion j.
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u l
− t
uX
Da = ðwi f i ðaÞ− wi f i Þ2 ð9Þ
j=1
Equation (9) calculates the distance between the
target alternative and negative ideal solution, summing
these for all criteria for the alternative a, where j is the
normalized negative ideal solution.
Da−
Ca =   ð10Þ
Da− +Da+
Equation (10) calculates the degree of similarity to the
negative ideal solution; the closer the similarity value is
to 1, the closer it is to the best alternative, and the closer
the value is to 0, the closer it is to the worst alternative.
3.6 | Evaluation metrics
This study used two evaluation metrics to assess the per-
formance of the bias-corrected GCM, as presented in
Equations (11) and (12), where X s and X o are GCM
 10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2694 SONG ET AL.

simulation and station observation, respectively, X o and 4 | RESULTS

X o are the means of GCM and observed data, and n is the
total number of data. 4.1 | Evaluation of GCM performances
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Pn It is generally assumed that higher performances of GCM
1
n ðXs − Xo Þ2 for the historical period indicate a better projection of the
i= 1
NRMS = ð11Þ future. Therefore, this study evaluated the performances
Xo
of 10 GCM pairs of CMIP5 and CMIP6. The precipitation
and average temperature of the CMIP5 and CMIP6
The normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) is an GCMs were downscaled and bias-corrected against the
error magnitude indicator that removes the scale differ- data from the 22 stations used here using IDW and QM,
ence by dividing the RMSE value by the observed mean. respectively. The GCMs' performances in simulating his-
The scale of NRMSE is between 0 and 1, and the closer to torical precipitation and temperature outcomes, based on
0 is the optimal value. NRMSE and Pbias, are presented in Figures 2 and 3,
respectively.
P
n
Figure 2 shows that most CMIP6 GCMs performed
ðXo − Xs Þ
i= 1 better than CMIP5 in simulating historical precipitation,
Pbias = ð12Þ
P
n except for GISS and MIROC in terms of NRMSE. The
Xo
i=1 NRMSE medians for GISS-E2-R and GISS-E2-1-G were
close to the optimal value, but the spread of GISS-E2-1-G
The percent bias (Pbias) is the deviation of GCM esti- was wider than that of GISS-E2-R. Pbias indicates that
mates from the observed data. A positive value Pbias rep- the GCMs of both CMIPs overestimated monthly precipi-
resents overvaluation by GCMs and vice-versa. tation levels. The intervals between the first and third
quantiles of CMIP6 were wider than those of CMIP5,
except for GISS, MIROC, and Nor. Overall, the results
3.7 | REA method showed inconsistency in GCM performance outcomes in
terms of different metrics. However, the improvement in
REA, developed by Giorgi and Mearns (2002), evaluates most CMIP6 GCMs in simulating monthly precipitation
the similarity of GCM outputs in the historical period was evident in two evaluation metrics. The most signifi-
and the differences in GCM projections for the future cant improvement was found in CanESM5.
period. The REA outcomes of CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs Figure 3 shows the lowest performances of MPI-ESM-
can be calculated using Equations (13) and (14). LR in replicating historical monthly average tempera-
tures. The medians of NRMSE were similar for all GCMs
h i
1 and close to the optimal value, except for MPI-ESM-LR.
m n ðm× nÞ
wi = ½ðwB,i Þ × ðwD,i Þ  ð13Þ Pbias showed an overestimation of the monthly average
h i temperature by all GCMs. Overall, the improvement in
m n 1 most CMIP6 GCMs in simulating the historical monthly
ε ε ðm× nÞ
= ð14Þ average temperature appeared to be very clear. MPI-
absðBi Þ absðDi Þ ESM1-2-LR showed the highest enhancement in simulat-
ing the monthly average temperature.
Here, wi the weight of the GCM simulations, wB,i is the The Taylor diagram (Taylor, 2001) presented in
error term between the GCM outputs to the station data Figure 4 shows the correspondence between the raw and
for the historical period, and wD,i is the difference term in bias-corrected CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs' simulations
the GCM projection for the future period. The initial cal- against the observed data according to the RMSE, Pear-
culation
 of the difference
 term is calculated via son correlation coefficient, and standard deviation. As a
Di = ΔGCM i −ΔGCM ], where ΔGCM is the difference result, the bias-corrected GCMs were found much closer
between the averages of the GCM outputs for the histori- to the observed data. The bias-corrected precipitation and
cal period. Equation (14) is an equation detailing Equa- temperature indicate their usability for drought analysis.
tion (13). Here, ε is the difference between the maximum Figure 5 shows the PDF of the bias-corrected GCM
and minimum values between the moving averages of the simulations and observed data. Overall, the PDF of
observed data over the 10 years. m and n denote the weight GCMs climate factors were similar to observed data.
of error and difference terms. A higher reliability value Especially, the PDF of temperature showed a better
means lower uncertainty (Giorgi and Mearns, 2002). match with the observed PDF. For precipitation, the PDF

SONG ET AL.
F I G U R E 2 Evaluation results
of the bias-corrected precipitation
of CMIP5 and CMIP6 against
observation at 22 stations [Colour
figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
F I G U R E 3 Evaluation results
of the bias-corrected temperature
of CMIP5 and CMIP6 against
observation at 22 stations [Colour
figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
of CanESM5 of CMIP5 was different from other GCMs.
These results confirmed that the precipitation perfor-
mance of CanESM2 had the lowest performance,
observed using evaluation indices. Overall, the PDFs of
CMIP6 GCMs were very close to the observed PDF. For
temperature, GCMs of both CMIPs showed very close to
the observation.
4.2 | Development of MME
4.2.1 | Projection using entropy-
weighted MME
This study estimated the entropy weights based on the
GCMs' performance outcomes presented in Section 4.1,
as shown in Table 3. CanESM2 and MPI-ESM-LR had
the lowest, while MIROC5 and GISS-E2-R had the
highest entropy weight for precipitation and temperature
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2695
among the CMIP5 GCMs. For the CMIP6 GCMs, MRI-
ESM2-0 showed the highest entropy weights for precipi-
tation whereas GISS-E2-1-G was the highest entropy
weights for temperature.
The projections of annual precipitation and annual
average temperatures for the RCP4.5 & SSP2-4.5 and
RCP8.5 & SSP5-8.5 scenarios are presented in
Figure 6. The projections consider using GCM MME
based on the entropy weights, averaged for 22 stations.
Figure 6a shows an increase in the average annual
precipitation for all four emission scenarios of 12.1%
for 2025–2060 and 17.8% for 2065–2,100 compared to
the base period (1970–2000). The relatively low-level
emission scenarios show a gentler rising slope,
whereas high-level ones show a more steeply rising
slope.
Figure 6b shows the projection of the annual average
temperature based on the entropy-weighted MME.
RCP4.5 and SSP2-4.5 showed corresponding average
 10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2696 SONG ET AL.

F I G U R E 4 Comparison between the raw and bias-corrected historical estimates by CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs against observations at
22 stations using Taylor diagram [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

F I G U R E 5 Probability density functions of observed and bias-corrected monthly precipitation and temperature of CMIP5 and CMIP6
GCMs at the 22 stations [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
 10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL. 2697

T A B L E 3 Entropy weights estimated based on the historical performance of GCMs (Yellow bold: minimum value, Orange bold:
maximum value) [Colour table can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

GCMs

CMIP Clim. Factor ACCESS CanESM GISS INM GFDL IPSL MIROC MPI MRI NOR SUM
CMIP5 PR 0.099 0.085 0.086 0.088 0.097 0.110 0.117 0.110 0.105 0.105 1.00
TEM 0.087 0.083 0.114 0.097 0.111 0.111 0.110 0.076 0.107 0.105 1.00
CMIP6 PR 0.090 0.079 0.082 0.086 0.117 0.093 0.107 0.113 0.126 0.107 1.00
TEM 0.017 0.087 0.149 0.075 0.101 0.131 0.138 0.082 0.073 0.147 1.00

F I G U R E 6 Projected precipitation
and temperature using MMEs based on
entropy weights at 22 stations. (a).
Precipitation (b). Temperature [Colour
figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

increases in the temperature of 1.21 and 1.20
C in the
near future and 0.71 and 0.85
C in the far future. The
lower increase in the temperature in the far future than
in the near future would reduce drought severity in the
far future compared to the near future.
4.2.2 | Projection using TOPSIS-
weighted MME
TOPSIS weights of the GCMs based on their performance
outcomes in terms of statistical metrics were calculated
 10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2698 SONG ET AL.

as shown in Table 4. For the CMIP5 GCMs, the weight in
precipitation was the highest for INM-CM4 and the low-
est for CanESM5. For temperature, ACCESS1-3 had the
highest and MPI-ESM-LR had the lowest weight. For the
CMIP6 GCMs, INM-CM4, and ACCESS-ESM1-5 had
the highest weights for precipitation and temperature,
respectively. The weight of INM-CM4-8 and MIROC6
had the lowest for precipitation and temperature, respec-
tively. These results revealed a small difference in GCM
weights using entropy and TOPSIS methods.
TOPSIS assesses and compares the performance of
GCMs relative to each other. However, TOPSIS is sensi-
tive to performance differences between factors. There-
fore, it assigns a higher weight to a GCMs that shows a
relatively high performance than the GCM that shows
low performance. This causes a larger difference in
TOPSIS weights for the GCMs. Besides, it assigns zero
weight to the GCM that shows the lowest performance.
Therefore, the precipitation and temperature weight for
CanESM2 and MPI-ESM-LR, respectively, was zero.
Nevertheless, the two ranks are mostly identical. The
MPI-ESM2-0 outcomes of CMI6 showed objectively high
performance capabilities.
Figure 7 shows the projections of the annual precipi-
tation and temperature based on the TOPSIS-weighted
MMEs. The precipitation projected, averaged for four
emission scenarios, revealed an increase of 10.7% for
2025–2060 and 18.2% for 2065–2100 compared to the base
period (1970–2005). The precipitation trend showed a
steady increase over the future period for the low-
emission scenarios. The trend was steeper for the high-
emission scenarios than for the low-emission scenarios.
The projections also revealed that annual precipitation in
South Korea may exceed 1,700 mm for the scenarios with
higher emissions.
The TOPSIS-weighted MME showed an average
increase in temperature of 1.15 and 1.03
C in the near
future and 0.68 and 0.73
C in the far future for
RCP4.5 and SSP2-4.5, respectively. The TOPSIS-
weighted MME also showed a lower increase in tem-
perature in the far future than in the near future. The
high-emission scenarios showed an average increase
in temperature of more than 1.5
C in both the near
and far futures. Overall, the entropy- and TOPSIS-
weighted MME precipitation and temperature projec-
tions showed good consistency.
4.3 | Historical drought analysis
The SPIs and SPEIs for 3, 6, 9, and 12 months were calcu-
lated using observed data for the base period (1970–2005)
for drought characterization in the study area. Figure 8
shows the spatiotemporal distributions of extreme

T A B L E 4 TOPSIS weights
GCMs
estimated based on the historical
CMIP Clim. Factor ACCESS CanESM GISS INM GFDL performance of the GCMs (Yellow bold:
CMIP5 PR Value 0.790 0 0.872 0.995 0.560 minimum value, Orange bold:
maximum value) [Colour table can be
Weight 0.123 0 0.136 0.155 0.087
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
TEM Value 0.953 0.959 0.749 0.926 0.990
Weight 0.113 0.113 0.088 0.109 0.117
CMIP6 PR Value 0.431 0.146 0.439 0.019 0.668
Weight 0.099 0.034 0.101 0.004 0.153
TEM Value 0.995 0.894 0.429 0.915 0.832
Weight 0.137 0.123 0.059 0.126 0.115
CMIP Clim. Factor IPSL MIROC MPI MRI NOR
CMIP5 PR Value 0.580 0.773 0.472 0.662 0.711
Weight 0.090 0.120 0.074 0.103 0.111
TEM Value 0.995 0.983 0 0.957 0.962
Weight 0.117 0.116 0 0.113 0.113
CMIP6 PR Value 0.192 0.486 0.492 1 0.486
Weight 0.044 0.111 0.113 0.229 0.111
TEM Value 0.715 0.200 0.905 0.930 0.439
Weight 0.099 0.028 0.125 0.128 0.061

SONG ET AL.
F I G U R E 7 Projected precipitation
and temperature using MMEs based on
the TOPSIS weights at 22 stations. (a).
Precipitation (b). Temperature [Colour
figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
droughts for different durations over South Korea.
Extreme droughts provide a more generalized view of the
drought characteristics of a region; therefore, the results
of extreme droughts are presented in this study as shown
in Figure 8. Three- and six-month extreme droughts
occur more in the SW and relatively less in the central
region. Nine-month extreme droughts are limited to cer-
tain regions, such as the NW, NE, SE, and Jeju Island,
while 12-month extreme droughts occur more widely
than the 9-month in the NW and SE. Overall, the esti-
mated regions in which extreme droughts occur using
SPEI and SPI were similar, but SPEI showed a higher
drought severity level than SPI. Therefore, SPEI esti-
mated more extreme droughts.
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2699
4.4 | Spatiotemporal projections of
droughts
4.4.1 | SPI projection using the entropy-
weighted MME
The maximum SPI droughts projected for RCPs and SSPs
using the entropy-weighted MME are spatially summarized
in Table 5. Overall, the highest drought events based on
SPI were projected from all over the country for most sce-
narios for the near future and in the SE for the far future.
The maximum droughts in the near future were much
more severe than in the far future. The projected maxi-
mum SPI for a 3-month duration for RCP4.5 in the near

2700
future was less than −3.0 in the west, while it was more
severe in most of the regions in the near future than in the
far future. SPI-9 for RCP4.5 showed a drought with an SPI
value of less than −3.0 in most regions. However, the sever-
ity in the far future for SPI-9 was lower than in the near
future. The differences in the maximum drought intensity
between the near and the far futures was the largest to
RCP4.5 and SSP5-8.5, which showed higher intensity
droughts in the NW in the near future than in the far future.
The maximum SPI-12 value was higher in the west
than in the east in both future periods. The differences in
drought severity levels between the near and far futures
were greater for RCP4.5 and SSP5-8.5 than the other sce-
narios. The largest difference was for RCP4.5. In
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
F I G U R E 8 Spatial
distributions of the frequency of
extreme droughts for the historical
period (1970–2005) estimated using
SPI and SPEI [Colour figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
particular, The projected drought in the west was higher
for the near future than for the far future. The maximum
drought severity levels in the near and far futures were
spatially drawn for the four durations and are presented
in Figure 9. SPI-3 showed extreme drought (SPI below
−2.0) over the entire country for all scenarios, except in
the NW. SPI-6 projected higher drought severity in the
near future for the SSP scenarios. SPI-9 and SPI-12
showed extreme droughts in all regions in the near
future, where SPI-9 showed moderate droughts and nor-
mal conditions in the far future.
The area showing the maximum percentile SPI
drought level as estimated from the entropy-weighted
MME for all durations and RCP and SSP scenarios was
 SONG ET AL.

TABLE 5 Maximum projected drought severities for different scenarios based on SPI and entropy MME

Near future Far future Differences

Duration Region RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5 RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5 RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5
SPI-3 NW −4.70 −3.20 −3.17 −3.05 −3.28 −2.66 −2.81 −1.89 1.43 0.53 0.36 1.16
NE −3.83 −3.02 −3.04 −3.16 −2.55 −2.63 −2.59 −2.02 1.28 0.40 0.45 1.13
SW −3.72 −3.32 −3.29 −3.12 −2.85 −2.62 −2.97 −2.93 0.87 0.70 0.32 0.19
SE −3.12 −2.97 −3.16 −2.92 −2.75 −2.32 −3.11 −3.06 0.37 0.65 0.05 −0.14
SPI-6 NW −4.65 −2.80 −2.94 −2.99 −3.19 −1.71 −1.71 −1.77 1.47 1.09 1.23 1.21
NE −3.84 −2.88 −3.33 −3.18 −2.73 −2.37 −2.37 −2.02 1.11 0.50 0.96 1.17
SW −3.79 −2.87 −3.29 −2.80 −2.66 −2.53 −2.53 −2.38 1.12 0.34 0.76 0.42
SE −3.22 −3.10 −3.34 −2.77 −3.17 −2.37 −2.37 −2.29 0.05 0.73 0.97 0.48
SPI-9 NW −4.67 −2.70 −2.60 −2.76 −1.98 −1.58 −3.08 −1.58 2.69 1.11 −0.48 1.18
NE −3.78 −2.79 −2.93 −2.95 −2.02 −1.95 −2.54 −1.66 1.76 0.83 0.39 1.29
SW −3.60 −2.62 −3.10 −2.73 −2.58 −2.26 −2.66 −2.17 1.02 0.37 0.44 0.57
SE −3.22 −2.34 −3.09 −2.66 −2.97 −2.29 −2.97 −2.10 0.26 0.05 0.12 0.56
SPI-12 NW −4.55 −2.97 −2.74 −2.75 −1.61 −1.46 −2.37 −1.14 2.94 1.51 0.37 1.61
NE −3.93 −2.64 −2.94 −2.87 −1.72 −2.15 −2.24 −1.33 2.21 0.49 0.70 1.54
SW −3.46 −2.41 −2.87 −2.65 −2.32 −2.13 −2.39 −1.70 1.15 0.28 0.48 0.95
SE −3.25 −2.25 −2.83 −2.79 −2.48 −2.05 −2.84 −1.71 0.77 0.21 0.00 1.08
2701

10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License

2702
calculated, as shown in Figure S1. Areas experiencing
extreme SPI-3 and SPI-6 drought conditions in the near
future were projected to become areas of severe drought
in the far future. For SPI-9 and SPI-12, reducing drought
areas from the near future to the far future was much
higher than for SPI-3 and SPI-6.
4.4.2 | SPI projection using the TOPSIS-
weighted MME
The maximum SPI droughts projected for RCPs and SSPs
using the TOPSIS-weighted MME are spatially
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
summarized in Table 6. Overall, the highest levels of sever-
ity of droughts were projected in the near future for most
scenarios and durations for which the highest droughts
were projected in the NE. The drought severity levels of all
scenarios and durations were lower in the SE. Overall, the
TOPSIS-weight MME showed less severe droughts than
those estimated using the entropy-weight MME. However,
both MMEs projected lower severity levels of longer-
lasting droughts compared to short-duration droughts..
The spatial distribution of the maximum drought
severity levels estimated using the TOPSIS-weighted
MME for all scenarios and durations was presented in
Figure 10. Overall, all scenarios projected extreme
F I G U R E 9 Spatial distribution
of maximum drought severity
levels estimated using SPI and
entropy MME [Colour figure can
be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
 SONG ET AL.

TABLE 6 Maximum projected drought severities for different scenarios based on SPI and TOPSIS MME

Near future Far future Differences

Duration Region RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5 RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5 RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5
SPI-3 NW −4.27 −3.11 −2.97 −2.80 −2.46 −1.97 −2.69 −1.92 1.81 1.14 0.28 0.88
NE −3.75 −3.11 −3.18 −3.30 −2.13 −2.12 −3.00 −2.12 1.62 0.99 0.18 1.18
SW −3.47 −2.89 −3.11 −3.05 −2.35 −2.39 −2.52 −2.76 1.12 0.5 0.59 0.29
SE −3.37 −2.72 −3.00 −2.88 −2.63 −2.58 −3.11 −2.78 0.74 0.14 −0.11 0.1
SPI-6 NW −4.26 −2.98 −2.90 −2.73 −2.30 −1.58 −2.48 −1.67 1.96 1.4 0.42 1.06
NE −3.84 −3.11 −3.24 −3.30 −2.11 −2.02 −2.55 −1.83 1.73 1.09 0.69 1.47
SW −3.25 −2.42 −3.19 −2.84 −2.44 −2.19 −2.47 −2.16 0.81 0.23 0.72 0.68
SE −3.08 −2.53 −3.22 −2.80 −2.85 −2.52 −2.86 −2.12 0.23 0.01 0.36 0.68
SPI-9 NW −4.28 −2.97 −2.44 −2.72 −2.55 −1.47 −2.80 −1.44 1.73 1.5 −0.36 1.28
NE −3.68 −3.08 −2.87 −2.93 −2.11 −1.71 −2.28 −1.57 1.57 1.37 0.59 1.36
SW −3.10 −2.55 −3.09 −2.69 −2.49 −2.01 −2.29 −1.72 0.61 0.54 0.8 0.97
SE −3.19 −2.38 −2.98 −2.80 −2.71 −2.40 −2.92 −2.06 0.48 −0.02 0.06 0.74
SPI-12 NW −4.05 −3.10 −2.45 −2.63 −1.98 −1.43 −2.23 −1.07 2.07 1.67 0.22 1.56
NE −3.86 −2.98 −2.83 −2.76 −2.13 −1.56 −2.36 −1.24 1.73 1.42 0.47 1.52
SW −3.19 −2.21 −2.71 −2.60 −2.25 −1.85 −2.33 −1.49 0.94 0.36 0.38 1.11
SE −3.44 −2.28 −2.76 −2.85 −2.54 −2.09 −2.82 −1.72 0.9 0.19 −0.06 1.13
2703

10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License

2704
droughts in the near and far futures for shorter durations
and moderately dry conditions in the far future for longer
durations. SPI-6 projected extreme droughts in the most
region for all scenarios and severe droughts over the
entire country for low-emission scenarios. Severe
droughts with 9-month durations were projected for the
entire country except for NW for RCP8.5 and the moder-
ate droughts projected in the NW. SPI-12 showed moder-
ate droughts over most of the country in all scenarios in
the far future, except for low-emission scenarios.
The drought coverage area (%) for different durations and
scenarios, projected using the TOPSIS-weighted MME, was
also calculated, as shown in Figure S2. The areas projected to
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
experience extreme 3- and 6-month duration of drought in
the near future will transform into severe drought areas in
the far future. In the SPI-9 and SPI-12 cases, areas experienc-
ing severe drought for low-emission scenarios will become a
moderate drought areas for the high-emission scenarios.
4.4.3 | SPEI projection using the entropy-
weighted MME
For entropy-weighted MME, the maximum SPEI
droughts projected for RCPs and SSPs are spatially sum-
marized in Table 7. Overall, most scenarios projected
F I G U R E 1 0 Spatial
distribution of maximum drought
severity levels estimated using SPI
and TOPSIS MME [Colour figure
can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
 SONG ET AL.

TABLE 7 Maximum projected drought severities for different scenarios based on SPEI and entropy MME

Near future Far future Differences

Duration Region RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5 RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5 RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5
SPEI-3 NW −2.73 −2.39 −2.32 −2.32 −2.47 −2.77 −2.46 −2.36 0.25 −0.38 −0.15 −0.04
NE −2.55 −2.36 −2.44 −2.43 −2.67 −2.59 −2.39 −2.43 −0.13 −0.23 0.05 0
SW −2.58 −2.35 −2.63 −2.49 −2.37 −2.69 −2.39 −2.59 0.21 −0.34 0.24 −0.10
SE −2.34 −2.32 −2.36 −2.51 −2.38 −2.56 −2.53 −2.64 −0.04 −0.24 −0.18 −0.13
SPEI-6 NW −3.01 −2.40 −2.22 −2.48 −2.98 −2.42 −2.27 −2.28 0.03 −0.02 −0.05 0.19
NE −2.71 −2.42 −2.51 −2.35 −2.75 −2.41 −2.31 −2.09 −0.04 0.01 0.20 0.26
SW −2.57 −2.15 −2.36 −2.28 −2.55 −2.77 −2.35 −2.47 0.02 −0.62 0.01 −0.18
SE −2.25 −2.24 −2.18 −2.35 −2.71 −2.67 −2.42 −2.56 −0.46 −0.43 −0.24 −0.21
SPEI-9 NW −3.07 −2.48 −2.16 −2.44 −2.19 −2.52 −2.51 −2.28 0.88 −0.04 −0.36 0.16
NE −2.88 −2.40 −2.37 −2.45 −2.13 −2.43 −2.63 −2.08 0.75 −0.03 −0.26 0.37
SW −2.47 −2.26 −2.43 −2.34 −2.32 −2.77 −2.37 −2.47 0.14 −0.51 0.06 −0.12
SE −2.26 −2.11 −2.30 −2.44 −2.37 −2.70 −2.46 −2.31 −0.11 −0.59 −0.16 0.13
SPEI-12 NW −2.99 −2.38 −2.21 −2.32 −1.92 −2.36 −2.22 −2.12 1.06 0.02 −0.01 0.20
NE −2.92 −2.26 −2.38 −2.18 −2.07 −2.35 −2.29 −1.88 0.85 −0.09 0.10 0.30
SW −2.37 −2.14 −2.17 −2.20 −2.21 −2.64 −2.34 −2.44 0.16 −0.50 −0.17 −0.24
SE −2.26 −2.21 −2.06 −2.14 −2.30 −2.60 −2.42 −2.18 −0.04 −0.40 −0.37 −0.03
2705

10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License

2706
SPEI values of less than −2 in all regions for all durations
in the near and far futures. The drought severity in the
NW for SPEI-6 was the highest compared to the other
regions. The difference in the SPEI-9 drought severity
level between the near and far futures was small com-
pared to those in the other durations. SPEI-12 in the near
future showed extreme drought in the north, whereas
severe drought in the south in the far future.
Figure 11 presents the spatial distribution of the maxi-
mum SPEI drought severity level for four emission scenarios
over South Korea. An extreme 3-month duration drought
was projected over the entire country for all four scenarios
and future periods. The projected SPEI-3 drought in the NW
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
was severe in the far future for all RCPs and SSPs. For
SPEI-6 and SPEI-9, drought in the near future for low-level
emission scenarios was extreme for the entire country and
severe drought of SPEI-9 for the far future in some areas for
the RCP4.5 and SSP5-8.5. The projected SPEI-12 outcome
showed severe drought in the NW for RCP4.5 and extreme
and severe drought for SSP2-4.5 in the far future. Extreme
drought conditions based on SPEI for the four scenarios were
estimated to be more widespread over the country. In con-
trast, severe drought was projected for the RCP4.5 and
SSP5-8.5. Areas experiencing severe drought for RCP8.5 were
larger than expected to experience extreme drought in the
far future.
F I G U R E 1 1 Spatial
distribution of maximum drought
severity levels estimated using
SPEI of entropy MME [Colour
figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
 SONG ET AL.

TABLE 8 Maximum projected drought severities for different scenarios based on SPEI and TOPSIS MME

Near future Far future Differences

Duration Region RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5 RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5 RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5
SPEI-3 NW −4.27 −3.11 −2.97 −2.80 −2.46 −1.97 −2.69 −1.92 1.81 1.15 0.28 0.88
NE −3.75 −3.11 −3.18 −3.30 −2.13 −2.12 −3.00 −2.12 1.62 0.99 0.18 1.18
SW −3.47 −2.89 −3.11 −3.05 −2.35 −2.39 −2.52 −2.76 1.11 0.50 0.59 0.30
SE −3.32 −2.73 −3.02 −2.89 −2.57 −2.52 −3.08 −2.69 0.75 0.20 −0.06 0.19
SPEI-6 NW −4.26 −2.98 −2.90 −2.73 −2.30 −1.58 −2.48 −1.67 1.96 1.40 0.42 1.06
NE −3.84 −3.11 −3.24 −3.30 −2.11 −2.02 −2.55 −1.83 1.73 1.09 0.69 1.47
SW −3.25 −2.62 −3.19 −2.84 −2.44 −2.19 −2.47 −2.16 0.81 0.43 0.73 0.68
SE −3.08 −2.42 −3.22 −2.81 −2.75 −2.43 −2.80 −2.05 0.33 −0.01 0.43 0.76
SPEI-9 NW −4.28 −2.97 −2.44 −2.72 −2.55 −1.47 −2.80 −1.44 1.73 1.51 −0.36 1.29
NE −3.68 −3.08 −2.87 −2.93 −2.11 −1.71 −2.28 −1.57 1.57 1.37 0.59 1.36
SW −3.10 −2.55 −3.09 −2.75 −2.49 −2.01 −2.29 −1.72 0.61 0.54 0.80 1.03
SE −3.17 −2.37 −2.97 −2.78 −2.63 −2.30 −2.85 −2.00 0.54 0.07 0.12 0.78
SPIE12 NW −4.05 −3.10 −2.45 −2.63 −1.98 −1.43 −2.23 −1.07 2.07 1.68 0.22 1.55
NE −3.86 −2.98 −2.83 −2.76 −2.13 −1.56 −2.36 −1.24 1.74 1.42 0.48 1.52
SW −3.19 −2.23 −2.71 −2.60 −2.25 −1.85 −2.33 −1.49 0.94 0.38 0.38 1.10
SE −3.42 −2.30 −2.75 −2.80 −2.44 −2.05 −2.76 −1.68 0.98 0.25 −0.01 1.12
2707

10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License

2708
The drought coverage area (%) for the different dura-
tions and scenarios estimated using SPEI was calculated, as
shown in Figure S3. The results showed an expansion of
the areas projected to undergo severe SPEI-3 and SPEI-6
drought in the far future for high-emission scenarios. For
SPEI-9 and SPEI-12, certain areas experiencing extreme
drought would meet severe drought in the far future.
4.4.4 | SPEI projection using the TOPSIS-
weighted MME
The maximum drought outcomes based on the TOPSIS
MME of the projected SPEI for each station in the RCPs
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
F I G U R E 1 2 Spatial
distribution of maximum drought
severity levels estimated using
SPEI and TOPSIS MME [Colour
figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
and SSPs are spatially summarized in Table 8. Overall,
the highest level of drought severity of SPEI was projec-
ted to be less than −2.0 in all durations, with more robust
drought estimated in the near than far futures. The
drought severity for SPEI-3 was the highest in SW,
whereas, in the SE, it was the lowest. Both emission sce-
narios clearly have high drought severity in the near
future. For SPEI-6, the maximum drought severity in the
NW for the near future would be less than −4 in RCP4.5.
However, the drought severity in the far future would be
less than −3 in the same region and scenario for the near
future. In the SPEI-9, the drought severity level in the far
future in most scenarios was lower than in the near
future in all regions except for NW in the SSP2-4.5, and
 10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL. 2709

the drought severity of SSP2-4.5 was higher in the near
future than in the far. For SPEI-12, the drought severity
levels in all regions for most scenarios were clearly higher
in the near future than in the far future, though the SE of
SSP2-4.5 showed the opposite outcome.
Figure 12 presents the severity level of the maximum
drought based on the TOPSIS MME from SPEI for the
four emission scenarios over South Korea. Overall, the
drought severity for all scenarios was very extremely dry
and extremely dry in the near future, and the projections
did not capture moderately dry conditions for all dura-
tions. Despite the fact that the far future was estimated
severely dry in some regions, the primary weather condi-
tion remains extremely dry. The severely dry conditions
of the four scenarios for SPEI-3 are estimated to be com-
mon in the most region, but not in the near future for
RCP4.5. In the far future, high-level emission scenarios
were expanded to extremely dry all over the country,
whereas the drought patterns in the low-level scenarios
were erratic, making it challenging to identify the
droughts pattern. For SPEI-6, the extremely dry condi-
tions of the near future were in the northern and east
regions, whereas the south region of most scenarios
showed areas of robust drought with scores of less than
−2.5 in the far future. The near future in the RCP scenar-
ios for SPEI-9 estimates severely dry conditions in some
regions. On the other hand, severely dry conditions in
high-level emission scenarios were predicted for the far
future. In the SPEI-12, all scenarios were estimated
higher than extremely dry in the near future, whereas the
far future was projected severely dry conditions in all sce-
narios except for SSP2-4.5. Droughts from the TOPSIS
weights were very dry and extremely dry conditions
compared to the drought conditions from the entropy
weights, and more severe droughts were estimated.
The maximum percent of the drought area for each
duration as projected by SPEI based on the TOPSIS MME
in four future scenarios was calculated, as shown in
Figure S4. Overall, the drought severity level of this per-
centage of area for all durations does not show a severity
type below severe dry conditions in the near and far
futures. Most area is distributed with drought severity
levels that exceed severely dry conditions. Furthermore,
the drought severity level of TOPSIS weight is higher
than that of the entropy weight, and the area showing
low severity is small.
4.5 | Uncertainty in future drought
projection
4.5.1 | Uncertainty in SPI
In this study, SPIs from 10 pairs of CMIP5 and CMIP6
GCMs were used to estimate the uncertainty of future
drought projections in the near and far future. Uncertainties
in projected drought outcomes were quantified using the
REA method for all durations and scenarios at the 22 sta-
tions. Table 9 presents the average REA outcomes in SPI for
the four scenarios. The SPI-3 values for RCP4.5 and
SSP2-4.5 were lower in the near future than in the far
future, whereas the other durations showed the opposite
results. The reliability in the temporal variation for RCP8.5
was different from those for SSP5-8.5. The reliability for
RCP8.5 was higher in the near future, whereas for SSP5-8.5,
it was higher in the far future than in the near for all dura-
tions. The difference between the near and far futures was

TABLE 9 Temporal average REA of SPI estimated for RCPs and SSPs compared to the base period of 1970–2000

Period Indices RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5

Near SPI-3 0.065 0.063 0.065 0.062
Far 0.061 0.059 0.059 0.082
Difference −0.004 −0.004 −0.006 0.020
Near SPI-6 0.058 0.067 0.076 0.067
Far 0.059 0.064 0.105 0.098
Difference 0.001 −0.003 0.029 0.031
Near SPI-9 0.054 0.064 0.073 0.071
Far 0.071 0.06 0.108 0.078
Difference 0.017 −0.004 0.035 0.007
Near SPI-12 0.056 0.119 0.068 0.06
Far 0.067 0.057 0.077 0.099
Difference 0.011 −0.062 0.009 0.039

2710
the largest for SSP5-8.5 and the lowest for RCP4.5. Overall,
the reliabilities in the near and far futures for the RCP sce-
narios were different at four durations. On the other hand,
the reliability for the SSP scenarios was higher in the far
future than in the near for most drought durations, mean-
ing that the projected droughts in the far future for SSP sce-
narios have low uncertainty levels compared to those of
RCP scenarios.
The spatial distribution of the uncertainties in SPI-
projected droughts is presented in Figure 13. The reliabil-
ity levels in SPI-3 for the four scenarios were below 0.15
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
F I G U R E 1 3 Uncertainty in
SPI projected droughts over
South Korea for the SSP and RCP
scenarios [Colour figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
for most of the regions, except for SSP5-8.5 in the far
future, which showed reliability higher than 0.30 in the
south. For SPI-6, the reliability in the south for the SSP
scenarios exceeded 0.3. For SPI-9, the reliability outcomes
for RCP4.5 and SSP2-4.5 were higher than 0.3. The reli-
ability for the low-emission scenarios was higher than
that of the high-emission scenarios. For SPI-12, the reli-
ability was higher for the low-emission, and the highest
was in the SE. Overall, the reliability of drought for
higher durations was higher and greater for all four sce-
narios. RCP8.5 showed the highest and the widest range
 10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL. 2711

TABLE 10 Temporal average REA of SPEI estimated for RCPs and SSPs compared to the base period of 1970–2000

Period Indices RCP4.5 RCP8.5 SSP2-4.5 SSP5-8.5

Near SPEI-3 0.058 0.057 0.067 0.057
Far 0.073 0.056 0.065 0.064
Difference 0.015 −0.001 −0.002 0.007
Near SPEI-6 0.052 0.054 0.066 0.077
Far 0.074 0.05 0.061 0.064
Difference 0.022 −0.004 −0.005 −0.013
Near SPEI-9 0.051 0.041 0.059 0.074
Far 0.053 0.044 0.055 0.098
Difference 0.002 0.003 −0.004 0.024
Near SPEI-12 0.059 0.072 0.064 0.078
Far 0.063 0.095 0.059 0.067
Median 0.002 0.003 −0.004 0.024

F I G U R E 1 4 Uncertainty in SPEI
projected droughts over South Korea for the
SSP and RCP scenarios [Colour figure can
be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

2712
of reliability for SPI-12. The reliability levels for the SSP
scenarios exceeded 0.15 for all durations, and the highest
values were for SPI-9 and SPI-12. These results indicate
that the projected droughts during SPI for SSPs have
lower uncertainty levels than those for RCPs.
4.5.2 | Uncertainty in SPEI
The averages of REA in SPEI were calculated for the four
scenarios and are presented in Table 10. The low emis-
sion scenarios showed consistent results for REA in the
near and far futures. The average REA for all durations
of droughts for RCP4.5 was higher in the far future than
in the near, whereas it was the opposite for SSP2-4.5. The
SPEI-3 and SPEI-6 outcomes for RCP8.5 showed higher
REA values in the near future than in the far. The oppo-
site was derived in SPEI-9 and SPEI-12. The average
REAs for SPEI-3 and SPEI-9 for SSP5-8.5 were higher in
the far future than in the near. However, the opposite
was for SPEI-6 and SPEI-12. The difference between the
near and far futures was the highest for SSP5-8.5 and the
lowest for SSP2-4.5. Therefore, the temporal variation
was the highest in SSP5-8.5 and the lowest in SSP2-4.5.
This indicates that the reliability levels of the projected
droughts for SSPs are higher than the reliability in RCPs.
Figure 14 presents the interpolated average REA of
the SPEI outcomes. The reliability levels for SPEI-3 of
RCP8.5, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 were less than 0.13
throughout the country. On the other hand, the reliabil-
ity in RCP4.5 exceeded 0.2 in the central region. The reli-
ability of SPEI-6 was greater compared to that of SPEI-3.
Most scenarios have reliability levels of more than 0.16 in
the near and far futures, except for RCP8.5. SSP5-8.5 has
the highest reliability in the near future. For SPEI-9,
SSP5-8.5 estimated overwhelmingly high reliability in the
near and far futures and high reliability in the
NE. RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5 showed reliability higher than
0.20 in SPEI-12. Overall, the reliability of SSP5-8.5 was
much higher than those for the other scenarios for most
drought durations. Except for SSP5-8.5, lower drought
durations were linked to greater reliability for low-
emission scenarios. On the other hand, drought projec-
tions for high-emission scenarios are more reliable for
higher durations.
5 | C ON C L U S I ON
This study estimated the differences in projected
droughts in South Korea from 10 pairs of CMIP5 and
CMIP6 GCMs for SSP and RCP scenarios. For this pur-
pose, projected drought severity levels for four durations
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
(3, 6, 9, and 12 months), estimated using the SPI and
SPEI, for two future periods (near future: 2025–2060 and
far future: 2065–2100) and four emission scenarios were
evaluated. The performances of CMIP5 and CMIP6
GCMs relative to observed data for the historical period
were compared using two evaluation metrics and PDF.
The weights of the GCMs estimated using the entropy
and TOPSIS were used to generate the MME outcome.
Overall, the performances of bias-corrected CMIP6
GCMs were improved compared to CMIP5 in simulations
of the historical temperature and precipitation levels. The
weights for precipitation and temperature were similar
for CMIP5 and CMIP6 GCMs, respectively, except for
CanESM5 & INM and MPI & MIROC. It means that
except for the low-performing GCMs, such as CanESM5,
MPI, GISS, and MIROC, others are less sensitive to each
other, which means that the configured GCMs are robust.
The GCM subsets can be selected based on evaluation
results obtained in this study. The MME projections
showed a gradual increase in precipitation and tempera-
ture in the near and far futures. The increase was higher
for high-emission scenarios than for low-emission scenar-
ios. Future drought estimated using SPI and SPEI with
TOPSIS weighted GCMs was more robust than that with
the entropy weighted GCMs. In general, the drought
scale and severity estimated using SPI were lower than
that obtained using SPEI. SPI only considers precipita-
tion, while SPEI considers both precipitation and evapo-
transpiration for drought estimation; therefore, it is
important to use various drought indices to analyse the
drought scale and severity. The estimated drought sever-
ity was lower for the far future than for the near future.
This may be due to more precipitation in the far future
than in the near. Regional changes in drought are gener-
ally active in NW, and SPI detects more regional changes
than SPEI. The drought reliability of SPEI was higher
than that of SPI, which means that it is more reliable if
used to consider evapotranspiration for a drought analy-
sis. SPI showed higher confidence levels in the southwest
and central regions, and SPEI showed higher reliability
in the central and eastern regions. The 9- and 12-month
drought outcomes showed higher reliability in the far
future than in the near, whereas the 3- and 6-month out-
comes showed higher reliability in the near future than
in the far. SPEI of the RCP scenarios is less reliable than
in the SSP scenario in most durations except for SPEI-12
for the far future. Likewise, the reliability of SPI in the
SSP scenario is higher than that of the RCP scenario.
Therefore, the SPI and SPEI projected droughts for the
SSP scenarios had lower uncertainty levels than those for
the RCP scenarios. This study can help clarify future
drought conditions on the Korean peninsula using SSPs
and RCPs.

SONG ET AL.
A C K N O WL E D G E M E N T
This research has been performed as Project No Open
Innovation R&D (D-W-004) and supported by K-water.
A U T H O R C ON T R I B U T I O NS
Young Hoon Song: Data curation; formal analysis;
investigation; visualization; writing – original draft.
SHAMSUDDIN SHAHID: Methodology; validation;
writing – original draft; writing – review and editing.
Eun-Sung Chung: Conceptualization; funding acquisi-
tion; methodology; supervision; writing – original draft;
writing – review and editing.
ORCID
Shamsuddin Shahid https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9621-
6452
Eun-Sung Chung https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4329-
1800
R EF E RE N C E S
Ahmed, K., Sachindra, D.A., Shahid, S., Demirel, M.C. and
Chung, E.S. (2019) Selection of multi-model ensemble of gen-
eral circulation models for the simulation of precipitation and
maximum and minimum temperature based on spatial assess-
ment metrics. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 23(11),
4803–4824. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4803-2019.
Alamgir, M., Mohsenipour, M., Homsi, R., Wang, X., Shahid, S.,
Shiru, M.S., Alias, N.E. and Yuzir, A. (2019) Parametric assess-
ment of seasonal drought risk to crop production in Bangladesh.
Sustainability, 11(5), 1442. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051442.
Almazroui, M., Saeed, F., Saeed, S., Islam, M.N., Ismail, M.,
Klutse, N.A.B., and Siddiqui, M.H. (2020) Projected change in
temperature and precipitation over Africa from CMIP6. Envi-
ronmental Earth Sciences, 4, 155–175. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s41748-020-00161-x.
Asdak, C., Supian, S. and Subiyanto. (2018) Watershed manage-
ment strategies for flood mitigation: a case study of Jakarta's
flooding. Weather and Climate Extremes, 21, 117–122. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.08.002.
Ayugi, B., Tan, G., Rouyun, N., Zeyao, D., Ojara, M., Mumo, L.,
Babaousmail, H. and Ongoma, V. (2020) Evaluation of meteo-
rological drought and flood scenarios over Kenya, East Africa.
Atmosphere, 11(3), 307. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11030307.
Berg, A., Sheffield, J. and Milly, P.C.D. (2017) Divergent surface
and total soil moisture projections under global warming. Geo-
physical Research Letters, 44(1), 236–244. https://doi.org/10.
1002/2016GL071921.
Cannon, A.J., Sobie, S.R. and Murdock, T.Q. (2015) Bias correction
of GCM precipitation by Quantile mapping: how well do
methods preserve changes in quantiles and extremes? Journal
of Climate, 28, 6938–6959. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-
00754.1.
Chen, S.J. and Hwang, C.L. (1992) Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision
Making: Methods and Applications. Berlin: Springer.
Conforti, P., Ahmed, S. and Markova, G. (2018) Impact of Disasters
and Crises on Agriculture and Food Security. Rome: Food and
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2713
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) http://
www.fao.org/3/I8656EN/i8656en.pdf.
Cook, B.I., Markin, J.S., Williams, A.P., Smerdon, J.E. and
Anchukaitis, K.J. (2020) Twenty-first century drought projec-
tions in the CMIP6 forcing scenarios. Earth's Future, 8(6),
e2019EF001461. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001461.
Dai, A. (2010) Drought under global warming: a review. Wiley Inter-
disciplinary Reviews Climate Change, 2, 45–65. https://doi.org/
10.1002/wcc.81.
Enayati, M., Bozorg-Haddad, O., Bazrafshan, J., Hejabi, S. and
Chu, X. (2021) Bias correction capabilities of quantile mapping
methods for rainfall and temperature variables. Journal of
Water and Climate Change, 12(2), 401–419. https://doi.org/10.
2166/wcc.2020.261.
Eyring, V., Bony, S., Meehl, G.A., Senior, C.A., Stevens, B.,
Stouffer, R.J. and Taylor, K.E. (2016) Overview of the Coupled
Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental
design and organization. Geoscientific Model Development, 9(5),
1937–1958. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1937-2016.
Fan, X., Miao, C., Duan, Q., Shen, C. and Wu, Y. (2020) The perfor-
mance of CMIP6 versus CMIP5 in simulating temperature
extremes over the global land surface. Journal of Geophysical
Research: Atmospheres, 125(18), e2020JD033031. https://doi.
org/10.1029/2020JD033031.
Ghosh, S. and Mujumdar, P.P. (2007) Nonparametric methods for
modeling GCM and scenario uncertainty in drought assess-
ment. Water Resources Research, 43, W07405. https://doi.org/
10.1029/2006WR005351.
Gibson, P.B., Waliser, D.E., Lee, H., Tian, B. and Massoud, E.
(2019) Climate model evaluation in the presence of observa-
tional uncertainty: precipitation indices over the contiguous
United States. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 20, 1339–1357.
https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-18-0230.1.
Giorgi, F. and Mearns, L.O. (2002) Calculation of average, uncer-
tainty range and reliability of regional climate changes from
AOGCM simulations via the "Reliability Ensemble Averaging"
(REA) method. Journal of Climate, 5, 1141–1158. https://doi.
org/10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<1141:COAURA>2.0.CO;2.
Gudmundsson, L., Bremnes, J.B., Haugen, J.E. and Engen-
Skaugen, T. (2012) Technical Note: Downscaling RCM precipi-
tation to the station scale using statistical transformations – a
comparison of methods. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences,
16, 3383–3390. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-3383-2012.
Hernandez, E.A. and Uddameri, V. (2014) Standardized precipita-
tion evaporation index (SPEI)-based drought assessment in
semi-arid south Texas. Environmental Earth Sciences, 71, 2491–
2501. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-013-2897-7.
Hwang, C.L. and Yoon, K. (1981) Multiple Attribute Decision Mak-
ing: Methods and Applications. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Karavitis, C.A., Alexandris, S., Tsesmelis, D.E. and
Athanasopoulos, G. (2011) Application of the Standardized Pre-
cipitation Index (SPI) in Greece. Water, 3, 787–805. https://doi.
org/10.3390/w3030787.
Khan, N., Sachindra, D.A., Shahid, S., Ahmed, K., Shiru, M.S. and
Nawaz, N. (2020) Prediction of droughts over Pakistan using
machine learning algorithms. Advances in Water Resources,
139, 103562. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2020.103562.
Keyantash, J. and Dracup, J.A. (2002) The quantification of
drought: an evaluation of drought indices. Bulletin of the

2714
American Meteorological Society, 83, 1167–1180. https://doi.org/
10.1175/1520-0477-83.8.1167.
Kim, J.H., Sung, J.H., Chung, E.S., Kim, S.U., Son, M.W. and
Shiru, M.S. (2021) Comparison of projection in meteorological
and hydrological droughts in the Cheongmicheon Watershed
for RCP4.5 and SSP2-4.5. Sustainability, 13(4), 2066. https://doi.
org/10.3390/su13042066.
Kim, Y.H., Min, S.K., Zhang, X., Sillmann, J. and Sandstad, M.
(2020) Evaluation of the CMIP6 multi-model ensemble for cli-
mate extreme indices. Weather and Climate Extremes, 29,
100269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2020.100269.
Kim, W., Iizumi, T. and Nishimori, M. (2019) Global patterns of
crop production losses associated with droughts from 1983 to
2009. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology., 58(6),
1233–1244. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0174.1.
Knutti, R., Furrer, R., Tebaldi, C., Cermak, J. and Meehl, G.A.
(2010) Challenges in combining projections from multiple cli-
mate models. Journal of Climate, 23(10), 2739–2758. https://
doi.org/10.1175/2009JCLI3361.1.
Kouhestani, S., Eslamian, S.S., Abedi-Koupai, J. and
Besalatpour, A.A. (2016) Projection of climate change impacts
on precipitation using soft-computing techniques: a case study
in Zayandeh-rud Basin, Iran. Global and Planetary Change,
144, 158–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2016.07.013.
Kwon, H.H., Lall, U., and Kim, S.J. (2016) The unusual 2013–2015
drought in South Korea in the context of a multicentury precip-
itation record: Inferences from a nonstationary, multivariate,
Bayesian copula model. Geophysical research letters, 43, 8534–
8544. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2020.100269.
Labudova, L., Labuda, M. and Takač, J. (2017) Comparison of SPI
and SPEI applicability for drought impact assessment on crop
production in the Danubian Lowland and the East Slovakian
Lowland. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 128, 491–506.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1870-2.
Lemordant, L., Gentine, P., Swann, A.S., Cook, B.I. and Scheff, J.
(2018) Critical impact of vegetation physiology on the continen-
tal hydrologic cycle in response to increasing CO2. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America, 115(16), 4093–4098. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.
1720712115.
Liu, C., Yang, C., Yang, Q. and Wang, J. (2021) Spatiotemporal
drought analysis by the standardized precipitation index (SPI)
and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI)
in Sichuan Province, China. Scientific Reports, 11, 1280. https://
doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80527-3.
Liu, Y. and Chen, J. (2021) Future global socioeconomic risk to
droughts based on estimates of hazard, exposure, and vulnera-
bility in a changing climate. Science of the Total Environment,
751, 142159. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80527-3.
Longley, P.A., Goodchild, M.F., Maguire, D.J. and Rhind, D.W.
(2005) Geographic Information Systems and Science. New York:
Wiley.
Mankin, J.S., Viviroli, D., Mekonnen, M.M., Hoekstra, A.Y.,
Horton, R.M., Smerdon, J.E. and Diffenbaugh, N.S. (2017)
Influence of internal variability on population exposure to
hydroclimatic changes. Environmental Research Letters, 12(4),
044007. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa5efc.
McKee, T.B., Doesken, N.J., Kleist. J. (1993). The relationship of
drought frequency and duration to time scales. Eighth
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
Conference on Applied Climatology. Anaheim, CA: American
Meteorological Society, 174–184.
McKee, T.B., Doesken, N.J. and Kleist, J. (1995) Drought Monitoring
with Multiple Time Scales. Boston, MA: American Meteorologi-
cal Society, pp. 233–236.
Mo, K.C. (2008) Model-based drought indices over the
United States. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 9, 1212–1230.
https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JHM1002.1.
Oh, S.B., Byun, H.R. and Kim, D.W. (2014) Spatiotemporal charac-
teristics of regional drought occurrence in East Asia. Theoretical
and Applied Climatology, 117(1), 89–101. https://doi.org/10.
1007/s00704-013-0980-3.
O'Neill, B.C., Tebaldi, C., Van Vuuren, D.P., Eyring, V.,
Friedlingstein, P., Hurtt, G., Knutti, R., Kriegler, E.,
Lamarque, J.F. and Lowe, J. (2016) The scenario model
intercomparison project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6. Geoscientific
Model Development, 9, 3461–3482. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-
9-3461-2016.
O'Neill, B.C., Kriegler, E., Ebi, K.L., Kemp-Benedict, E., Riahi, K.,
Rothman, D.S., van Ruijven, B.J., van Vuuren, D.P.,
Birkmann, J., Kok, K., Levy, M. and Solecki, W. (2017) The
roads ahead: narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways
describing world futures in the 21st century. Global Environ-
mental Change, 42, 169–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
gloenvcha.2015.
Park, C.K., Ho, C.H., Park, R.J., Woo, J.H., Lim, C., Park, D.S.R.,
Park, H., Kim, M.J., Kim, Y., Hong, S.C. and Kim, J. (2020) Pro-
jections of future drought intensity associated with various
local greenhouse gas emission scenarios in East Asia. Terrestrial
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, 31, 9–19. https://doi.org/10.
3319/TAO.2019.06.16.01.
Pomerol, J.C. and Romero, S.B. (2000) Multicriterion Decision
in Management: Principles and Practice. Netherlands:
Kluwer.
Pokhrel, Y., Felfelani, F., Satoh, Y., Boulange, J., Burek, P.,
Gädeke, A., Gerten, D., Gosling, S.N., Grillakis, M.,
Gudmundsson, L., Hanasaki, N., Kim, H.J., Koutroulis, A.,
Liu, J., Papadimitriou, L., Schewe, J., Schmied, H.M.,
Stacke, T., Telteu, C.E., Thiery, W., Veldkamp, T., Zhao, F.
and Wada, Y. (2021) Global terrestrial water storage and
drought severity under climate change. Nature Climate
Change, 11(3), 226–233. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-
00972-w.
Raju, K.S. and Kumar, N.D. (2010) Multicriterion Analysis in Engi-
neering and Management. New Delhi: Prentice Hall of India.
Riahi, K., Kriegler, E., Johnson, N., Bertram, C., den Elzen, M.,
Eom, J., Schaeffer, M., Edmonds, J., Isaac, M., Krey, V.,
Longden, T., Luderer, G., Méjean, A., McCollum, D.L.,
Mima, S., Turton, H., van Vuuren, D.P., Wada, K., Bosetti, V.,
Capros, P., Criqui, P., Hamdi-Cherif, M., Kainuma, M. and
Edenhofer, O. (2015) Locked into Copenhagen pledges—
implications of short-term emission targets for the cost and fea-
sibility of long-term climate goals. Technological Forecasting
and Social Change, 90, 8–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.
2013.09.016.
Ringard, J., Seyler, F. and Linguet, L. (2017) A quantile mapping
bias correction method based on hydroclimatic classification of
the Guiana shield. Sensors, 17, 1413. https://doi.org/10.3390/
s17061413.

SONG ET AL.
Salman, S.A., Shahid, S., Afan, H.A., Shiru, M.S., Al-Ansari, N. and
Yaseen, Z.M. (2020) Changes in climatic water availability and
crop water demand for Iraq region. Sustainability, 12(8), 3437.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083437.
Shiau, J.T. (2020) Effects of gamma-distribution variations on SPI-
based stationary and nonstationary drought analyses. Water
Resources Management, 34, 2081–2095. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11269-020-02548-x.
Shannon, C.E. (1948) A mathematical theory of communication.
Bell Labs Technical Journal, 27(3), 379–423. https://doi.org/10.
1002/j.1538-7305.1948.tb01338.x.
Sheffield, J. and Wood, E.F. (2007) Projected changes in drought
occurrence under future global warming from multi-model,
multi-scenario, IPCC AR4 simulations. Climate Dynamics, 31,
79–105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-007-0340-z.
Shiru, M.S., Shahid, S., Alias, N. and Chung, E.S. (2018) Trend
analysis of droughts during crop growing seasons of
Nigeria. Sustainability, 10(3), 871. https://doi.org/10.3390/
su10030871.
Shiru, M.S., Shahid, S., Chung, E.S., Alias, N. and Scherer, L. (2019)
A MCDM-based framework for selection of general circulation
models and projection of spatio-temporal rainfall changes: a
case study of Nigeria. Atmospheric Research, 225, 1–16. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2019.03.033.
Shiru, M.S., Shahid, S., Dewan, A., Chung, E.S., Alias, N.,
Ahmed, K. and Hassan, Q.K. (2020) Projection of meteorologi-
cal droughts in Nigeria during growing seasons under climate
change scenarios. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/
10.1038/s41598-020-67146-8.
Sillmann, J., Kharin, V.V., Zhang, X., Zwiers, F.W. and
Bronaugh, D. (2013) Climate extremes indices in the CMIP5
multimodel ensemble: part 1. Model evaluation in the present
climate. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 118,
1716–1733. https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50203.
Spinoni, J., Barbosa, P., Bucchignani, E., Cassano, J., Cavazos, T.,
Christensen, J.H., Christensen, O.B., Coppola, E., Evans, J.,
Geyer, B., Giorgi, F., Hadjinicolaou, P., Jacob, D., Katzfey, J.,
Koenigk, T., Laprise, R., Lennard, C.J., Kurnaz, M.L., Li, D.,
Llopart, M., McCormick, N., Naumann, G., Nikulin, G.,
Ozturk, T., Panitz, H.J., Rocha, R.P., Rockel, B., Solman, S.A.,
Syktus, J., Tangang, F., Teichmann, C., Vautard, R., Vogt, J.V.,
Winger, K., Zittis, G. and Dosio, A. (2020) Future global meteo-
rological drought hot spots: a study based on CORDEX data.
Journal of Climate, 33(9), 3635–3661. https://doi.org/10.1175/
JCLI-D-19-0084.1.
Song, Y.H., Chung, E.S. and Shiru, M.S. (2020) GCMs using multi-
ple bias correction methods under different RCPs. Sustainabil-
ity, 12, 7508. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187508.
Song, Y.H., Nashwan, M.S., Chung, E.S. and Shahid, S. (2021a)
Advances in CMIP6 INM-CM5 over CMIP5 INM-CM4 for pre-
cipitation simulation in South Korea. Atmospheric Research,
247, 105261. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2020.105261.
Song, Y.H., Chung, E.S. and Shahid, S. (2021b) Spatiotemporal dif-
ferences and uncertainties in projections of precipitation and
temperature in South Korea from CMIP6 and CMIP5 GCMs.
International Journal of Climatology, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.
1002/joc.7159.
Srivastava, A., Grotjahn, R. and Ullrich, P.A. (2020) Evaluation of
historical CMIP6 model simulations of extreme precipitation
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2715
over contiguous US regions. Weather and Climate Extremes, 29,
100268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2020.100268.
Stevens, B. and Bony, S. (2013) What are climate models missing? Sci-
ence, 340, 1053–1054. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1237554.
Su, B., Huang, J., Mondal, S.K., Zhai, J., Wang, Y., Wen, S.,
Gao, M., Lv, Y., Jiang, S., Jiang, T. and Li, A. (2021) Insight
from CMIP6 SSP-RCP scenarios for future drought characteris-
tics in China. Atmospheric Research, 250, 105375. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2020.105375.
Tobler, W. (1970) A computer movie simulating urban growth in
the Detroit region. Economic Geograpy, 46, 234–240.
Taylor, K.E. (2001) Summarizing multiple aspects of model per-
formance in a single diagram. Journal of Geophysical
Research Atmospheres, 106, 7183–7192. https://doi.org/10.
1029/2000JD900719.
Taylor, K.E., Stouffer, R.J. and Meehl, G.A. (2012) An overview of
CMIP5 and the experiment design. Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society., 93, 485–498.
Teutschbein, C. and Seibert, J. (2012) Bias correction of regional cli-
mate model simulations for hydrological climate-change
impact studies: review and evaluation of different methods.
Journal of Hydrology, 456, 12–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jhydrol.2012.05.052.
Thornthwaite, C. (1948) An approach toward a rational classifica-
tion of climate. Geographical Review, 38, 55–94. https://doi.org/
10.2307/210739.
Trenberth, K.E. Dai, A., G. Schrier, V.D. Jones, P.D., Barichivich, J.,
Briffa, K.R., Sheffield, J. (2014) Global warming and changes in
drought. Nature Climate Change, 4, 17–22. https://doi.org/10.
1038/nclimate2067
Ukkola, A.M., Kauwe, M.G., Roderick, M.L., Abramowitz, G. and
Pitman, A.J. (2020) Robust future changes in meteorological
drought in CMIP6 projections despite uncertainty in precipita-
tion. Geophysical Research Letters, 47(11), 1–14. https://doi.org/
10.1002/essoar.10502465.1.
Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Beguería, S. and L opez-Moreno, J.I. (2010) A
multi-scalar drought index sensitive to global warming: the stan-
dardized precipitation evapotranspiration index. Journal of Cli-
mate, 23(7), 1696–1718. https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JCLI2909.1.
Wang, C., Zhang, L., Lee, S.K., Wu, L. and Mechoso, C.R. (2014) A
global perspective on CMIP5 climate model biases. Nature Cli-
mate Change, 4, 201–205. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2118.
Wang, H., Pan, Y. and Chen, Y. (2017) Comparison of three
drought indices and their evolutionary characteristics in the
arid region of northwestern China. Atmospheric Science Letters,
18(3), 132–139. https://doi.org/10.1002/asl.735.
Wang, T., Tu, X., Singh, V.P., Chen, X. and Lin, K. (2021) Global
data assessment and analysis of drought characteristics based
on CMIP6. Journal of Hydrology, 596, 126091. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126091.
Wang, L. and Chen, W. (2014) A CMIP5 multimodel projection of
future temperature, precipitation, and climatological drought
in China. International Journal of Climatology, 34, 2059–2078.
https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3822.
Wang, M., Zhang, D.Q., Su, J., Dong, J.W. and Tan, S.K. (2018)
Assessing hydrological effects and performance of low impact
development practices based on future scenarios modeling.
Journal of Cleaner Production, 179, 12–23. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.jclepro.2018.01.

2716
Wehner, M.F., Reed, K.A., Li, F., Prabhat, Bacmeister, J., Chen, C.
T., Paciorek, C., Gleckler, P.J., Sperber, K.R., Collins, W.D.,
Gettelman, A., Jablonowski, C. (2014) The effect of horizontal
resolution on simulation quality in the Community Atmo-
spheric Model, CAM5.1. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth
Systems, 6, 980–997. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013MS000276
Woldemeskel, F.M., Sharma, A., Sivakumar, B. and Mehrotra, R.
(2014) A framework to quantify GCM uncertainties for use in
impact assessment studies. Journal of Hydrology, 519, 1453–
1465. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.09.025.
Wu, T., Lu, Y., Fang, Y., Xin, X., Li, L., Li, W., Jie, W., Zhang, J.,
Liu, Y., Zhang, L., Zhang, F., Zhang, Y., Wu, F., Li, J., Chu, M.,
Wang, Z., Shi, X., Liu, X., Wei, M., Huang, A., Zhang, Y. and
Liu, X. (2019) The Beijing Climate Center Climate System
Model (BCC- CSM): the main progress from CMIP5 to CMIP6.
Geoscientific Model Development, 12, 1573–1600. https://doi.
org/10.5194/gmd-12-1573-2.
10970088, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7386 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARA CAMPUS UNIVERSITARIO DO GUAMA, Wiley Online Library on [23/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
SONG ET AL.
Zamani, Y., Monfared, S.A.H. and Hamidianpour, M.H. (2020) A
comparison CMIP6 and CMIP5 projections for precipitation to
observational data: the case of Northeastern Iran. Theoretical
and Applied Climatology, 142, 1613–1623. https://doi.org/10.
1007/s00704-020-03406-x.
SU PP O R TI N G I N F O RMA TI O N
Additional supporting information may be found in the
online version of the article at the publisher's website.
How to cite this article: Song, Y. H., Shahid, S.,
& Chung, E.-S. (2022). Differences in multi-model
ensembles of CMIP5 and CMIP6 projections for
future droughts in South Korea. International
Journal of Climatology, 42(5), 2688–2716. https://
doi.org/10.1002/joc.7386