Co-Ordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment
C O R D E X - Africa
Chris
Lennard
Wednesday 20 March 13
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Cordex regions
Wednesday 20 March 13
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Done by many groups
Wednesday 20 March 13
Downscaling
ND and SD, multiple models
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Done by many groups
Wednesday 20 March 13
Downscaling
ND and SD, multiple models
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Downscaling Groups
SMHI
ICTP
UKMO
DMI
Univ. Cantabria (Spain)
EU Joint Research Centre
ISU
IPSL
KNMI
CNRM
MPI
UQAM
CSAG – Univ. Cape Town
- Precis model
- WRF model (3 yrs to go)
- Statistical downscaling
(end 2012)
CSIR – Pretoria
- CCAM global model
Wednesday 20 March 13
Cordex - Africa
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Cordex – Africa Analysis
Ethos:
A – Analysis; developing methods and tools to analyze atmospheric
processes over Africa and how these may change into the future
F – Foci; addressing key meteorological and impacts knowledge gaps
R – Regional messages; presenting information for key regions of the
continent
I – Integrated approach; bringing together climate and vulnerabilityimpact-adaptation scientists to identify and address key climate
vulnerabilities
C – Capacity development; long-term collaboration between African
scientists and key global institutions for career development
A – Application and Adaptation; bridging the science-society divide
through transforming climate data into actionable information
Wednesday 20 March 13
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Cordex – Africa Analysis
Ethos:
A – Analysis; developing methods and tools to analyze atmospheric
processes over Africa and how these may change into the future
F – Foci; addressing key meteorological and impacts knowledge gaps
R – Regional messages; presenting information for key regions of the
continent
I – Integrated approach; bringing together climate and vulnerabilityimpact-adaptation scientists to identify and address key climate
vulnerabilities
1.1 billion people
C – Capacity development; long-term collaboration between African
scientists and key global institutions for career development
A – Application and Adaptation; bridging the science-society divide
through transforming climate data into actionable information
Wednesday 20 March 13
7
Cordex – Africa Analysis
Ethos:
A – Analysis; developing methods and tools to analyze atmospheric
processes over Africa and how these may change into the future
F – Foci; addressing key meteorological and impacts knowledge gaps
R – Regional messages; presenting information for key regions of the
continent
I – Integrated approach; bringing together climate and vulnerabilityimpact-adaptation scientists to identify and address key climate
vulnerabilities
C – Capacity development; long-term collaboration between African
scientists and key global institutions for career development
A – Application and Adaptation; bridging the science-society divide
through transforming climate data into actionable information
Wednesday 20 March 13
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Cordex - Africa Analysis
Putting the ‘CO’ in CORDEX - Series of 4(5) Workshops
April 2010
March 2011
July 2011
November 2011
February 2012
Cape Town
Planning
•Discussed ERA-Interim runs
•Developed metrics
•Set regions
•Discussed observation data
•Discussed goals for first workshop
•Discussed data dissemination
Wednesday 20 March 13
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Cordex - Africa Analysis
Putting the ‘CO’ in CORDEX - Series of 4(5) Workshops
April 2010
March 2011
Cape Town
Planning
Trieste, Italy
Conference
2 Day workshop
July 2011
November 2011
February 2012
Cordex Conference & Workshop (Fri & Sat)
• Formed regional groupings
•Adjusted regions
•Reset metrics and variables
•Training in R
•Discussed VIA scientists involvement
•Set goals for next meeting (July 2011)
•Discussed ERA-Interim runs
•Developed metrics
•Set regions
•Discussed observation data
•Discussed goals for first workshop
•Discussed data dissemination
Wednesday 20 March 13
10
Cordex - Africa Analysis
Putting the ‘CO’ in CORDEX - Series of 4(5) Workshops
April 2010
March 2011
July 2011
November 2011
February 2012
Cordex Conference & Workshop (Fri & Sat)
• Formed regional groupings
•Adjusted regions
•Reset metrics and variables
•Training in R
•Discussed VIA scientists involvement
•Set goals for next meeting (July 2011)
Cape Town
Planning
Trieste, Italy
Conference
2 Day workshop
Cape Town
Group Leaders
Analysis and planning
Leaders workshop
•Revisited regions
•Developed series of analyses
•Observation data
•Continued training
•Discussed VIA aspects
•Data -> Action
Wednesday 20 March 13
11
Cordex - Africa Analysis
Putting the ‘CO’ in CORDEX - Series of 4(5) Workshops
April 2010
March 2011
July 2011
Cape Town
Planning
November 2011
February 2012
Atmospheric and VIA scientists (3 streams)
•Continued atmospheric analysis and training
•VIA scientists
•Develop questions from VIA perspective
•Integrate VIA and atmos scientists
•Set preliminary paper content
Trieste, Italy
Conference
2 Day workshop
Cape Town
Group Leaders
Analysis and planning
Leaders workshop
•Revisited regions
•Developed series of analyses
•Observation data
•Continued training
•Discussed VIA aspects
•Data -> Action
Wednesday 20 March 13
Cape Town
Data Analysis
VIA scientists
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Cordex - Africa Analysis
Putting the ‘CO’ in CORDEX - Series of 4(5) Workshops
April 2010
March 2011
July 2011
November 2011
February 2012
Cape Town
Planning
Paper writing workshop 5 days
•Not analysis
•Each day a section
Trieste, Italy
•Teaching how to write a paper
Conference
•Paper outline
IPCC AR5 Deadline
31
July
(submitted)
2 Day workshop
•Introduction
1. An Assessment of CORDEX Regional Climate
• Conclusions
Models over West Africa
•Results
Cape Town
2. Diurnal cycle and intra-seasonal variability
of
•Workplan
Group
Leaders
rainfall over West Africa using CORDEX
Models
AnalysisRCMs
and planning
3. Assessing the Performance of CORDEX
in simulating the East African rainfall
4. Extreme events over southern Africa in
Cape Town
CORDEX models
Data Analysis
5. Evaluating southern Africa precipitation patterns
VIA scientists
simulated by Regional Climate Models
Trieste
6. A diagnostic evaluation of CORDEX models
over southern Africa
Writeshop
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Cordex - Africa
Favre et al. 2011
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Cordex – Africa Analysis
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Cordex West Africa
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Cordex Southern Africa
Good
Terrible
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Ok
Urgh!
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Cordex Southern Africa
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Cordex - Africa
Integrating the climate and VIA communities....
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Delivered
by science
Data
Needed
by society
Bridge
THE
GAP
Climate models, historical
observations, trends,
downscaling, projections, event
frequency, …
Generated by models,
analyses, downscaling...
but observations?
Information
Measures of vulnerability and
risk, threshold exceedence,
combinatory impacts,
uncertainty and confidence,
regional scale variations, …
Knowledge
Assessing options,
understanding consequences,
evaluating responses, informing
decision making, …
A basis for action
Balance competing priorities,
strategic investments in
adaptation and mitigation, new
research avenues, coordination
of response frameworks, …
Wednesday 20 March 13
We are not always sure
when we have
“information”
Comes with close coupling
between science and
society - relationship
based!
Actions are risky, and takes
place within a multistressor context
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Core%science%
&%research%
Integra(on*in** Interpreta(on*&**
applica(on*
tailoring*
Observations
past change
GCM
predictions
Circulation
changes
Downscaled
predictions
Consider all of these in climate change assessment
Regional Integration and Understanding
Data products with
articulated uncertainty
Storylines and robust
messages of anomalies
Contextualization
around real world
questions
“Recipients”
A framework for integrating information across the science-society
continuum : co-exploration
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Cordex – Africa Analysis
Sectors interested in using climate information from CORDEX-Africa
Agriculture
Rain season characteristics including spatial variability, temperature
thresholds, growing season length, scale (space and time - daily at a point?)
Ecology
Thresholds, effects on ecosystem services and productivity
Water resource management
Extreme rainfall and early warning; wind and humidity
Health
Space and time scales; communication
City planning
Infrastructure, prei-urban, storm water, water & food security...
Policy makers
What information is need for decision making? How to package it?
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Cordex - Africa
Integrating the climate and VIA communities....it’s complicated!
Burkina Faso: 28-30 May 2012
Health, media and climate specialists
-Communication barriers and capacity gaps between providers and
potential users of climate data
-The climate community gained understanding of the types of
climate parameters that health experts need to make decisions;
health community gained insights into the potential of using
climate information to better manage diseases.
We as organizers learned even more!
-Information about thresholds
-Each community has unique climate
information needs
-Desire to work together
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Cordex - Africa
Integrating the climate and VIA communities....it’s complicated!
Pune - India: 17 -20 October
2012
Agriculture, Hydrology, Insurance,
Climate
- Vulnerabilities often not clearly
identified
- Language and translation into
specific sectors
- Thresholds and extremes
- What type of climate information is needed in each sector?
Often the question sectors need addressed are not well articulated
Wednesday 20 March 13
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Cordex - Africa
"Would you tell me, please, which way
I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where
you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you
go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,"
Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the
Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
Wednesday 20 March 13
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Cordex - Africa
Integrating the climate and VIA communities....it’s complicated,
complicated but
its getting clearer!
Dar es Salaam - Tanzania: 13 - 15 February 2013
Climate Information for Decision Making in Peri-Urban Areas
(Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Kampala, Lusaka, Maputo)
- Met, city managers, academics, water managers, DRM,
Environmental protection, food security, Cordex climate scientists
- Identify & rank non-climate related sensitivities in peri-urban activities
- Looked at trends in the historical climate data (Met. people)
- Identify & rank activities in peri-urban area stressed by climate
- Identify highly climate sensitive activities in the peri-urban areas
that require thought about medium to long term planning
- Began with development of a policy response.........For example
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Place vs Sector
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What is next......
Cordex - Africa
Analysis Workshop
• SMHI - RCA4
• 6 GCMs - Historical & 6 Future
• DMI archive being populated
• Re-evaluate regions
• Data dissemination
• How do we deal with so much data?
• How do we evaluate ND vs SD?
• Engagement of user communities?
•Writeshop
• Follow up on ERA papers
• Method papers?
• Data dissemination
Cordex global activities
•International conference on regional
climate (November 2013)
• Watch the web site...
Wednesday 20 March 13
User engagement
• Continued engagement with 3 cities (June
2013)
• Biodiversity analyses
Working with other Cordex regions
• Cordex Asia
• Euro Cordex
Putting the ‘CO’ in
CORDEX.........
...... A LOT OF WORK!
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Cordex Web Presence
The official WCRP CORDEX page
http://wcrp-cordex.ipsl.jussieu.fr/
CORDEX Africa
http://www.csag.uct.ac.za/cordex
CORDEX Europe
http://www.eurocordex.com
DMI Archive
http://cordex.dmi.dk/joomla/
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