Mapping Climate Change

1
Mapping Climate Change

• Prof. David Stainforth
• Exeter University

2
Climate Change A Global Reality

• In my view, climate change is the most severe
  problem we are facing today, more serious even
  than the threat of terrorism,Sir David King, UK
  Government Chief Scientist, 2004.
• Climate change has profound implications for
  virtually all aspects of human well-being, from
  jobs and health to food security and peace within
  and among nations. Until we acknowledge the
  all-encompassing nature of the threat, our
  response will fall short.Kofi Annan, Secretary
  General of the United Nations. November 2006.

3
How do we know?

• Basic physics 1st law of thermodynamics,
  conservation of energyIncreasing atmospheric
  greenhouse gases should lead to global warming.

Carbon Dioxide
4
Global Temperatures (and sea levels) Are Rising

• Global Average Temperature
• 0.74oC/century over last 100 years.
• 1.30oC/century over last 50 years.

• Global Average Sea Level
• 1.8 mm/year (1961-2003)
• 17cm through the 20th century.

5
Whatever We Do Theyre Going To Continue

• If greenhouse gas emissions had
• stopped entirely in 2000, we
• would still be committed to
• further changes of
• about 0.5oC by 2100
• 320 sea level rise over that in the 20th century.

Meehl et al., 2005
IPCC AR4, 2007
6
How Does Mankind Respond?

• Mitigation.Reduce mankinds greenhouse gas
  emissions by international treaties and market
  instruments trading .vs. taxes.See Stern
  Review of the Economics of Climate Change.
• Adaptation.Improve resilience to climate and
  climate change.Build climate change risks into
  todays decisions. Particularly those we want to
  have a long term impact such as the African Green
  Revolution.

7
An Information/Communication Gap

• What are my vulnerabilities to climate?
• How might climate change influence my decisions?
• How can climate science inform my decision?
• Climate science is a new science. Its
  interpretation in terms of informing adaptation
  planning is a subject of research. Information is
  in terms of risk and possibilities not
  deterministic predictions or objective
  probabilities.
• There is an opportunity for YOU to help direct
  climate science to better inform your decisions
  and understand your vulnerabilities.
• Decision makers tend to over-interpret climate
  models.
• Climate modellers tend to oversimplify the role
  of climate in adaptation decisions.

8
Climate models Forecasting the future?
GCMs Global Circulation Models
100000 grid boxes in the atmosphere another
100000 in the ocean.
9
Projecting Future Climate

• Method
• Create a model based on physics.
• Assess its plausibility by simulating past
  climate. e.g. the 20th century.
• Simulate various scenarios of the future.

10
Uncertainty

• Forcing UncertaintyWhat will future greenhouse
  gas emissions be?
• Initial Condition UncertaintyThe impact of
  chaotic behaviour.
• Model ImperfectionsDifferent models give very
  different future projections even if they can
  all simulate the past equally well.

11
Exploring Uncertainty

• Model simulations with different models.
• IPCC models (about 20)
• climateprediction.net (about 40000)
• Climateprediction.net invites members of the
  public to run a GCM on their PC.
• gt 300000 people have taken part.
• gt 100000 simulations completed.

12
A Range of Possibilities(but not
probabilities)
Mediterranean Basin
Northern Europe
Winter
Summer
Annual
13
A Climate Change Ensemble RangeAn African Example
14
Interpreting This Range For A Specific Objective
Frequency of outcomes.
Downscale and evaluate impact.
Distribution of climate sensitive factor.
Precipitation
Temperature
Climate sensitive decision factor e.g.
agricultural production (tonnes/yr)
Extract range of model variables.
15
Step Back (1)

• Few (if any) decisions are driven by climate
  change.
• Climate change adaptation is only one input to
  most decisions.
• It is nevertheless important to make the best use
  of the information available and thus minimise
  the risk of wasted investment and potential.

16
Step Back (2)

• Only you know your climate vulnerabilities.e.g.
  length of the dry season, likelihood of 100 days
  with no extremes, risk of floods, timing of the
  onset of the wet season,
• Examine them, define them, minimise them.
• What does climate science have to say about how
  climate change will affect them?

17
CEER - Interpreting Climate Science for
Adaptation Planning

• CEER is a joint project of the Stockholm
  Environment Institute (SEI), AWhere Inc., Exeter
  University, Cape Town University, ENDA and other
  organisations.
• Examine climate vulnerabilities.
• Examine climate data (observations and models) to
  evaluate whether there is relevant information
  for adaptation planning.
• Encourage a move from deterministic or scenario
  approaches to risk based planning. And therefore
  strategies which are more robust to future
  changes.

18
Access to Data

• Mapping projected model ranges.
• Mapping climate observations.
• Mapping vulnerabilitiesincluding populations,
  agricultural activities, investment, facilities.
• Examine ones vulnerabilities without employing a
  team of climate and GIS (Geographical Information
  Systems) specialists.

19
Mapping Climate Change
Agriculture contribution to GNP
Population
Temperature Change
20
Conclusions / Summary

• Were only beginning to get the data you
  need.(Many of my plots have unclear scales
  particularly regarding the time of anticipated
  changes)Lobby the research centres and their
  funders to
• address uncertainty exploration to enable risk
  based assessments,
• focus on factors to which you are vulnerable,
• ensure data is freely available.
• Develop engagement activities to explore what
  useful information climate science may have for
  you now.And what may be available in 5 years
  time.
• Accounting for climate change could make the
  difference between long term success and long
  term failure for the african green revolution.