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Programmes related to future
climate change in the Caribbean
Natural disaster risk management, reduction and mitigation
programmes in the Caribbean are primarily focused on the
immediate threats posed by annual regional weather phenom-
ena. However, within the last decade there has been increasing
activity focused on preparedness for the distant future. These
activities centre on:
• Identifying the vulnerability of Caribbean societies to
global climate change and climate variability
• Developing mitigation and adaptation strategies to minimize
the risks posed to Caribbean societies by these phenomena.
Significant efforts at national and regional levels have been
expended to quantify the impacts of global climate change on
the Caribbean region. These have put particular focus on
regional initiatives, especially their effectiveness in identifying
regional vulnerabilities to climate change and in developing
and implementing strategies for their mitigation.
Global climate change is expected to result in increasing
temperatures in both the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans.
Increasing atmospheric temperatures are accelerating the melting
of the Earth’s polar ice caps, thereby increasing the volume of
water present in the oceans. Thermal expansion of the water is
causing sea levels to rise globally. Within the Caribbean region,
the affects of global climate change are anticipated to be sea level
rises, increasing mean annual temperatures, increasing rainfall
variability, and increasing tropical storm activity and intensity.
The most significant impacts of sea level rise in the
Caribbean and coastal regions of South and Central America
will be inundation of low-lying coastal zones. For example, in
Guyana sea level rise is expected to result in the permanent
inundation of thousands of square miles of the coastal region
and the significant inland migration of seawater up river chan-
nels. The combination of these processes is expected to lead
to the displacement of significant numbers of coastal residents,
salinization of aquifers and soils, and the destruction of tradi-
tional farming areas. Increases in sea levels, coupled with storm
surges, may further exacerbate flooding in low-lying coastal
communities. The combined effects of these outcomes are
expected to result in considerable economic losses at the local
and national levels if significant mitigation and adaptation
measures are not put in place.
impacts caused by weather phenomena. To effectively perform
their functions, organizations responsible for disaster
management rely on an integrated structure that couples
several other specialized organizations into a comprehensive
decision-making framework.
In Barbados, the Central Emergency Relief Organization
(CERO) is one of the agencies responsible for natural disaster
risk reduction, preparedness and mitigation. When severe
weather threatens Barbados, CERO’s decision-making frame-
work includes inputs from, and coordination with, organizations
such as the Barbados Meteorological Services, the Barbados Fire
Service, the Royal Barbados Police Force, the Barbados Defense
Force and the Barbados medical fraternity, among others.
National Meteorological Services in the Caribbean provide
vital information that support decision-making associated with
potential weather-related disasters and disasters that may be
exacerbated by meteorological processes. As a matter of
national policy, these services are responsible for issuing warn-
ings and advisories during periods of severe weather. These
activities and responsibilities require staff within these Services
to interact with individuals from a range of disciplines and to
provide information that is easy to understand and easily inte-
grated in a multidisciplinary natural disaster management
framework. With the growing complexity of natural disaster
management in the Caribbean, disaster management interac-
tions within multidisciplinary teams can no longer be limited
to on-the-job training, but must be an integral part of acade-
mic and professional training programmes.
The Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology
(CIMH) is a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recog-
nized Regional Meteorological Training Centre (RMTC),
responsible primarily for training staff to serve in national
meteorological services. Training is performed in-house at
diploma level and in collaboration with the University of the
West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus, at degree level. Staff at
CIMH are also key participants in graduate research
programmes in pure and applied meteorology at UWI.
CIMH has not traditionally included natural disaster manage-
ment in its training programmes. However, given the changing
demands on National Meteorological Services in the Caribbean,
CIMH is in the process of formally integrating natural disaster
management into its training programmes to prepare students
for integration into natural disaster management teams.
CIMH is involved in a number of collaborative efforts that
support natural disaster management through the identification
of vulnerabilities and the formulation of mitigation strategies.
For example, the organization has been involved in:
• Flood plain mapping projects that provide information to
guide land-use and flood mitigation policies at the national
level
• Storm surge mapping to support the identification of
vulnerable coastal communities
• Research programmes using numerical simulators to better
forecast regional and local weather systems that may have
an adverse effect on public health and safety
• Agrometeorological programmes that address the vulner-
ability of food systems in the Caribbean to natural disasters.
Information from these activities, as well as input from relevant
stakeholders such as regional and national disaster manage-
ment agencies, is being used to develop a weather-related
disaster management component to CIMH’s programmes.
Example of numerical weather prediction produced by CIMH staff
using the MM5V3 model in operational mode during the 2006
Atlantic hurricane season
Source: Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH)