Climate analogues for climate change adaptation planning

Climate analogues for climate change adaptation planning

Eike Luedeling

GRP5

Climate change

NASA-GISS, 2009. www.giss.nasa.gov

Climate change

Annual rainfallchange (mm)

CCCMA modelA2a scenario

2080s

Climate change impacts


Schlenker and Lobell, 2010. Environmental Research Letters 5, 014010 (8 pp)

Projected yield changes by 2050M

illet

Sorg

hum

Mai

ze5th percentile Mean 95th percentile

Impa

ct (p

erce

nt)

Adaptation / Mitigation

How can we adapt?

How can we be sure that adaptation is appropriate?

How can we mitigate?

How can we be sure that mitigation is

sustainable?

How to take adaptation and mitigation measures that are quantitatively appropriate for expected

impacts of climate change?

Open questions

Modeling climate change impacts

Annual rainfall (CCCMA model; A2a scenario; 2080s)

+Ecological

or agricultural

models

Climate projections

Impact projection

=


Hertel et al., 2010. Global Environmental Change – Human and Policy Dimensions 20, 577-585

Projected yield changes by 2030

20

0

-20

-40

% Y

ield

Cha

nge

South Africa maize

US maize

Malawimaize

US wheat

China wheat

EU wheat

Canada wheat

India rice

China rice

Indonesia rice

Brazil soy

High productivity

Central outcome

Low productivity


Winter chill for temperate fruit trees

Luedeling et al., PLoS ONE, in press.


Winter chill for temperate fruit trees

Luedeling et al., PLoS ONE, in press.

Colorful maps… what do they mean to decision makers?

Sometimes a lot, normally not much!

Limitations to modeling

Tree life cycle

Yield

Winter chill

Summer heat

Pest pressure

Pruning

Weather extremes

Diseases

Many systems are too complicated to model

Limitations to modeling

Bad models…

Luedeling et al., 2009. Agriculture, Ecosystems and

Environment 133, 23-31.

Chilling Hours

Utah M

odel

Pos. Utah

Dynam

ic

Chilling Hours

Utah M

odel

Pos. Utah

Dynam

ic

Many models are by definition

unsuitable for climate change

analysis

How quantitatively reliable are model projections?

Climate analogue analysis – an alternative approach?

Mean monthly temp in Africa

Present

Similar?

Similar?

FutureCCCMA

A2a2080

Somewhat similar?


Mean monthly temp in Africa

Present

Similar?

Similar?

FutureCCCMA

A2a2080

Somewhat similar?

Most projected climates for a given location exist elsewhere at present!

Where are they?

Can we learn lessons from climate analogues?


Possible lessons

What crops are grown?

How have farmers adapted to local climate?

What social safeguards are in place?

What political measures are taken?

What is the carrying capacity?

How to find analogues

Climatic distance

2FP2

FP2

FP PrecPrecTminTminTmaxTmaxdistClim

Monthly values


Climatic distance

2FP2

FP2



Climatic distance

2FP2

FP2


Normalization

Monthly values

Weights (depending on objective)


Climatic distance

2)(distClimionnormalizat

XXweight FP

X months

X can be

Monthly mean temperatures and precipitationMore complicated climate variables (mean length of dry

spells, etc.)Agroclimatic indicators (e.g. growing degree days)

…

The analogue tool (prototype)

Analogue tool

Programmed in R

Data entry…

Excel tables and climate grids

The tool

Gridded climate data for many scenarios

Polygon vectorExtract regional dataset,

change resolution,make scenario list

Site position (or name)

Extract projection data from regional (or global) dataset

For each scenario

Calculate climate distance to each point in baseline

Produce outputs for scenario

Summarize scenario outputs

Evaluate analogue locations

Outputs

as .html page

Analogue list

Correspondence plot

Correspondence plot

Mean daily precipitation

Mean daily maximum temperature

Mean daily minimum temperature

Climatic distance map

Climatic distance map

Analogue map

Analogue map

What else happens there? – Google Earth

What else happens there? – Google Earth images

B

A

Analogue pathways

What else happens there? Raster evaluation

Aridity index (Precipitation / PET)

Distributions over 50 closest

analogues per scenario

Any gridded dataset can be

sampled

What else happens there? Raster evaluation

Potential yield of rainfed maize (low intensity)

Distributions over 50 closest

analogues per scenario

Measure of vulnerability to climate change?

Data from IIASA, 2009

Agroforestry and climate change

Agroforestry may reduce farmers’ vulnerability to climate change

But tree-based systems may also be vulnerable to climate change, because trees must be supported…

every year...

for decades…

Climate analogues can help find out if trees are likely to survive

Suitability of Sahelian locations for parklands

Approach

Known parkland locations Climatic data layers

Phillips et al. 2006. Ecological Modelling 190, 231–259

Ecological niche modeling – Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt)

Requires occurrence input (species, ecosystems)Characterizes environment based on GIS layers (climate)

Calculates suitability score for all locations within study extent


Approach


MaxEnt suitability


Approach


MaxEnt suitability

Input for Climate Analogue Analysis


Climate Analogue Analysis

Ségou Zinder

Old Peanut Basin



Old Peanut Basin



Old Peanut Basin



Old Peanut Basin

MaxEnt suitability score for parkland



Ségou



Ségou

Ségou



Ségou




Zinder



Zinder

Zinder




Next steps

Add non-climatic variables to analogue finding procedure

Test the usefulness of analogues in field surveys

Make the tool into a useable application (web-based)

Thanks for your attention!

[email protected]

Asante sana!

Asante sana!

Asante

sana!

Asante sana!

Asante sana!

Asante sana!

Asante

sana!

Asante sana!

Asante sana!


Burke et al., 2009. Global Environmental Change 19, 317-325

2025 2050 2075

Overlap between historic and simulated seasonal temperatures

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Novel crop climates in Africa’s maize growing region

Documents

Climate analogues for climate change adaptation planning