Climate Exchange

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The Climate Science Research Partnership

Professor Stephen Belcher, Head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, UK;

and Dr Yvan Biot, Department for International Development (DFID)

limate variability and change have huge impacts on food

security, water availability, human health and social and

economic infrastructures. This is particularly relevant

in Africa where people are especially vulnerable to hazardous

weather and climate change. Substantial sustainable poverty

reduction can be achieved in Africa through improved predictions

of climate variability and change. Among other things, this needs

improved understanding and modelling of the African climate.

The Climate Science Research Partnership (CSRP) is working with

African stakeholders to improve the understanding and practical

prediction of African climate to help alleviate poverty. The CSRP is a

partnership between the Department for International Development

(DFID) of the UK Government and the Met Office Hadley Centre. It is

working to advance the scientific understanding of African climate now

and in the future, and bring new science into use.

Challenges and strategy

With climate change, referring to historical data is becoming a less

reliable way of estimating the risk of climate extremes. Seasonal

forecasts now provide the best basis to predict climate risk up to six

months ahead and they can take into account both climate variabil-

ity and change. Seasonal forecasting systems can also form the basis

for early warning systems to enable better planning of relief activi-

ties. Improvements to the understanding and modelling of climate

over Africa can be incorporated into seasonal forecasting systems

and improve the usefulness of these forecasts.

On longer, decadal time scales, climate change and variabil-

ity signals are typically of the same magnitude. A starting point

in adaptation planning is to build resilience to current climate

variability, while recognizing that current climate conditions will

significantly change in future. Decadal prediction systems enable

both current variability and future climate change to be systemati-

cally accounted for.

There is a growing tendency to attribute all climate-related local

and regional changes to man-made increases in greenhouse gases,

whereas other reasons such as natural climate variability and land

use changes, for example deforestation, can be of more importance.

Developing near-real-time systems that can attribute the causes of

observed changes is a high priority to avoid inappropriate and poten-

tially expensive adaptation measures.

Information about the future climate is needed on a scale that can

be used directly by in-country stakeholders. This requires downs-

caling global climate information to the local level. The products

currently available, such as seasonal forecasting products, are of

limited use because they do not address key stakeholder require-

ments. Therefore, it is vital to establish the priority variables and

regions of interest for long-range (monthly-to-decadal) forecast

information, through discussions with relevant projects

and institutions operating in Africa.

The CSRP is enhancing the professional devel-

opment of African climate scientists by running

training workshops to help develop and disseminate

new products based on CSRP research. In addition,

African graduate students have been engaged in study

fellowships to research African climate issues as a

way of strengthening the pool of in-country climate

science researchers.

Work streams

CSRP has five different work streams, each led by a Met

Office Hadley Centre scientist, designed to achieve a set

of project objectives. These objectives have been refined

through consultation with African stakeholders, with

key aims to determine the variables and parameters for

which improved prediction is most urgent and to iden-

tify priority requirements for capacity building.

Consultation

The aim was to help identify research directions that

would best contribute towards enhancing the range and

quality of climate information available to users in Africa

A total of 52 interviews were held with a wide

range of stakeholders in eight African countries.

Stakeholders included the main regional climate

organizations, national meteorological and hydro-

logical services, universities, non-governmental

organizations, government ministries and ‘boundary

organizations’ acting on climate information to aid

vulnerable communities.

The largest number of interviews (12) was

held with African climate service providers and

included regional climate organizations such as

the Intergovernmental Authority on Development

(IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre

(ICPAC), the African Centre for Meteorological

Applications for Development (ACMAD) and the

Southern African Development Community Climate

Services Centre (SADC-CSC). A technical question-

naire was fielded to nine African climate service

providers to obtain insight into their ranking of

research priorities.

The consultation focused on needs for monthly-to-

decadal predictions, as these timescales are of most

practical interest in developing resilience to climate

variability and change.

apacity

evelopment