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Good day
Welcome to the July 2017 edition of the Future Climate for Africa newsletter.
To date Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) has made substantial progress in delivering world-leading research and piloting novel climate services with policy makers across the African continent. This includes the first-ever simulations of the African climate with a high-resolution convection-permitting climate model (CP4-Africa) which demonstrates radical improvements in skill and promises a significant contribution to decision-relevant, robust climate information products and tools.
This edition of the FCFA newsletter includes brief summaries of research progress and events over the past 6 months, including links to full academic and news articles for further reading. It also includes links to FCFA webinars and publications aimed at non-academic audiences.
Content of the July newsletter:
- New research funded by FCFA
- Kenya and Malawi: Climate information for resilient tea
- Applying cognitive psychology to communicating uncertain climate information
- Updates: research and pilot studies across African
- Engaging partners and community leaders in Senegal and Burkina Faso (AMMA-2050)
- Producing the first ever convection-permitting model simulations for Africa (IMPALA)
- Understanding East African climate and impacts (HyCRISTAL)
- Progress on co-production of climate information in Tanzania and Malawi (UMFULA)
- City Learning Labs completed in Lusaka, Windhoek and Maputo (FRACTAL)
- Recent FCFA publications
- FCFA webinars and blogs
- Navigating climate information sources for African decision-making
- An introduction to central and southern Africa's climate
- Integrating climate information into green growth finance in Rwanda
Should you have any questions on FCFA work we invite you to get in touch with the coordinator of the research consortium working in your region or country, or FCFA's coordination unit, via our website: www.futureclimateafrica.org
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The FCFA newsletter list has grown substantially in 2017. If this is the first edition you're receiving or you're still not quite sure what FCFA's objectives are or how the programme of work is structured, we invite you to watch our 2 minute introductory video and page through our brochure in English, French or Portuguese.
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Applying Cognitive Psychology to Communicating Uncertain Climate Information
 FCFA is funding new research to better understand how climate scientists can improve communication and visualisation of uncertain climate information for non-academic decision-makers. The research will engage decision-makers working with climate data in a range of contexts, including urban and rural areas, national and subnational levels of government, as well as in Anglophone and Francophone countries. The 12-month research project will build on work by two FCFA consortia ( AMMA 2050 and FRACTAL) related to assessing the comprehension of uncertain climate information in different decision-making contexts. Research outputs include a set of practical guidelines for communicating uncertainty within climate information, and training scientists on how to implement these guidelines. Click here for more information on the research project. |
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Kenya and Malawi: Climate Information for Resilient Tea (CI4T) Project
 Tea production is an important contributor to the economies of Kenya and Malawi. FCFA is funding new research to identify key climatic characteristics that influence the quality and quantity of tea production in Kenya and Malawi. The project will investigate various adaptation methods to support long-term planning in tea production. Local and regional industry partners involved in the project include James Finlay Limited (Kenya), Tea Research Foundation of Central Africa (Malawi), and the Ethical Tea Partnership. Click here to find out more about the research project Climate Information for Resilient Tea Production (CI4Tea). |
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FCFA Research Consortia news
AMMA-2050: Engaging partners and community leaders in Senegal and Burkina Faso
The 2nd AMMA-2050 annual project meeting held in Somone, Senegal, brought together close to 50 people from 8 countries. Meetings included engagements with community leaders and decision-makers from the Fatick region where AMMA-2050 work is focused on long –term adaptation planning in farming communities. AMMA researchers also used the opportunity to launch the guide, “Meteorology of Tropical West Africa: The Forecasters' Handbook.” For the full story on the event, click here.
A joint BRACED/AMMA-2050 workshop, hosted in Burkina Faso attracted 40 people, ranging from city planners and technical services, to NGOs and researchers, to discuss how weather and climate information can support local government decision making. This participatory exercise sought to develop and propose plans for enabling stronger integration of climate information into local government decision-making. Click here for the workshop report.
AMMA-2050 Coordinator contact: Dr Tanya Warnaars, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, twarnaars@ceh.ac.uk
Attendees at the 2nd Annual AMMA-2050 Meeting
IMPALA: Producing the first ever convection permitting model simulations for the African continent
IMPALA is making significant contributions to the wider climate science research community through high resolution convection-permitting model (CP4-Africa) simulations. These high resolution simulations is set to contribute a step change improvement in modelling local climate processes related to convection, the land surface and aerosol loading. It is hoped that this will in turn become a key resource for wider research and climate services communities to generate decision-relevant, robust climate information products and tools. Early applications have shown much-improved simulation of West African Monsoon rainfall and propagation of westward moving storms across the Rift Valley region relative to non-convection permitting control runs.
IMPALA work also focuses on selecting metrics for process-based evaluation of climate model performance over Africa. A paper setting out a vision for international coordination of model evaluation for Africa and analysis of baseline performance of the MetUM has been submitted for publication. Testing of a satellite-based preferential source mask to improve the MetUM’s spatial distribution of dust emissions is completed with a new scheme that improves the distribution of dust developed.
IMPALA Coordinator contact: Dr Richard Graham, UK Met Office, richard.graham@metoffice.gov.uk
HyCRISTAL: Understanding East African climate and impacts
Hy CRISTAL has advanced in quantifying, understanding and modelling climate change in East Africa to provide improved knowledge of processes driving climate in the region, the local response and their representation in models. There is significant progress in understanding and assessing the atmospheric water budget in models and reality, causes for changes under climate change, and diverse model responses. Estimates of changes from existing projections with uncertainties have been generated including user-relevant metrics defined with changes from CMIP and CP4-Africa. Sites for eddy-covariance surface observations are identified while sensors have been installed on a ship for in-situ observations generating data to enhance understanding of Lake Victoria Basin climate.
HyCRISTAL is also working with partners to co-produce research for decision-making on a 5-40 year timescale in four pilots studies. In Kisumu, and Kampala the pilots are focused on informing urban water and sanitation management. To date, HyCRISTAL have developed a conceptual model for the urban WASH work; and identifying key risks to health from WASH systems under climate stress, through a combination of community, practitioner and decision-maker engagement. They have also completed survey work in the field and leveraged existing datasets through a series of activities focused on urban flooding and its impact on WASH. In Mukono (Uganda) and Homa Bay (Kenya), pilots are working to inform adaptive climate-smart rural livelihoods.
HyCRISTAL Coordinator contact: Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, University of Leeds, G.Lopez-Gonzalez@leeds.ac.uk
UMFULA: Progress on co-production of climate information in Tanzania and Malawi
UMFULA held a series of consultative workshops in Tanzania and Malawi with stakeholders to discuss their activities, their need for climate information, and how the UMFULA team can add value and strengthen the production and delivery of climate information that is useful to them. Stakeholders included the Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services and the Centre for Climate Change and Environment Management in Malawi, and Tanzania Met Agency, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, and the Rufiji Basin Development Authority in Tanzania. This is in line with UMFULA’s co-production approach of “learning by doing”.
Significant advances have been made in the controls on the spread of rainfall in central and southern Africa as seen through coupled models. These advances will help to improve the climate models and lead to more robust future climate projections. UMFULA have also developed a guide on use of climate models, which explains how climate models can be used appropriately and how to avoid some common pitfalls in interpretation.
UMFULA Coordinator contact: Estelle Rouhaud, Grantham Research Institute, E.Rouhaud@lse.ac.uk
 FRACTAL: 1st Learning Labs completed in Lusaka, Windhoek, and Maputo
Lusaka, Windhoek and Maputo saw the successful completion of FRACTAL’s first Learning Labs. A wealth of rich engagement and information has emerged in understanding the decision making contexts within these cities, institutional mapping, and burning development issues.
FRACTAL have also produced a number of research outputs, notably an Adaptation Inspiration Booklet to showcase examples of effective adaptation interventions from target cities. Also freshly developed are set of new analysis approaches and visualisations to support production of climate risk narratives. In addition, the Climate Information Portal (CIP) has been updated to incorporate the new visualisations, provide access to CORDEX projections, and allow exploration of GCM and CORDEX simulations. Meanwhile, process based model analysis has progressed significantly, as has the development of a value-added approach to CORDEX simulations.
FRACTAL Coordinator contact: Alice McClure, University of Cape Town, alice@csag.uct.ac.za
FCFA Capacity Development for Early Career Researchers
AMMA-2050 organised a number of skills-building activities for early career researchers in West African research institutions. These included a week-long course in computer programming and analysis of climate model results at the University of Leeds, UK. The training was attended by researchers from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Senegal. Meanwhile, 2 early career researchers from Burkina Faso’s 2iE also attended training in hydrological modeling for the AMMA-2050 flooding case study in Ouagadougou. The researchers were hosted at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) for up to 6 weeks.
Members of the UMFULA team held a capacity development workshop in climate communication for UK and South Africa-based early career researchers.
FRACTAL have taken a leading role in capacity development by embedding early career researchers within local government in order to better understand the everyday practices of governance that influence the ability to engage with climate information and the perceived limitations to existing climate information. Embedded researchers are actively working within Maputo, Windhoek and Lusaka city governance. |
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Selected Publications from FCFA
Global warming responsible for tripling of extreme West African storms
A new sudy by AMMA-2050 shows that global warming is responsible for a tripling in the frequency of extreme West African Sahel storms observed over the past 3 decades. Meso-scale Convective Systems (MCS) intensification is linked to increasingly hot conditions in the Sahara desert resulting from man-made greenhouse gas emissions. ( Taylor et al. 2017)
Linking Arctic Ice-sheet Melting to Sahelian Migration
Increased ice sheet melting in the Artic could lead to further drying in the African Sahel, and disrupt future agriculture and livelihoods. This is according to a study led by scientists from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in France and involving several researchers taking part in FCFA’s AMMA-2050 consortium. Scientists used climate, ice-sheet, and agro-ecological models to test how melting ice sheets’ disturbance of major ocean currents can in turn affect agriculture and, by extension, migration in the Sahel.
The West African Sahelian region is a well-known climate change hot-spot due to persistent high temperatures and occurrence of extreme events. The region is also highly dependent on agriculture, which remains the most important sector in terms of employment and an important contributor to GDP. Given that farming in the region is largely rain-fed, the region is highly vulnerable to climate induced food insecurity; any projections of negative future changes in rainfall in the African Sahel region would be worrying. The FCFA research projects that partial melt of Greenland ice sheets can induce a drastic decrease of West African monsoon rainfall. For the full news and academic article, click here. ( Defrance et al. 2017)
Improvements in understanding Sahelian drought
AMMA-2050 researchers have successfully shown that rainfall is skillfully predicted on inter-annual and multi-year timescales (5years). The study also investigates the driving mechanisms. The results will improve understanding and forecasting of Sahel drought, an important element in developing adaptation strategies in a changing climate.( Sheen et al. 2017)
Lack of waste management increases urban aquifers' vulnerability to high intensity rainfall
A new study on urban ground water quality vulnerability due to anthropogenic contamination across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) found that a combination of limited waste management and high intrinsic vulnerability in many regions render urban aquifers highly impacted by faecal and chemical loading, posing a clear health risk to users. High-intensity rainfall events pose a risk to shallow and poorly protected groundwater sources, especially for unimproved dug wells and springs. ( Lapworth et al., Hydrogeol J. 2017)
Finding better ways to represent the tropics through coupled models
A study using HadGEM2-ES coupled climate model has investigated tropical response to cooling of the Southern Hemisphere extratropics and adjustment of inter-hemispheric albedo to understand the impact of reducing a longstanding extra tropical climate model bias. The study shows that simplified corrections, which do not correct the underlying biases in the physical processes, such as convective-dynamical coupling in the tropics, are unable to yield substantial improvements in the representation of the tropics. ( Hawcroft, M., Haywood, J.M., Collins, M. et al. Clim Dyn. 2017)
New methods for attribution of human influence on regional precipitation
A perspective article on detection and attribution of human influence on regional precipitation considers how new methods of analysis can be applied for detection and attribution of regional changes in precipitation by reflecting on how current models and observations can best be utilized to provide robust view of anthropogenic change in regional precipitation. It argues that while observations and models are continuously improving and detection and attribution analyses should take advantage of such advances, innovative methods for analysing the available observations and models could yield important additional information to inform societies and policymakers about the nature of changing precipitation at local spatial scales. ( Sarojini, et al. 2016)
Climate Information Websites: Issues for consideration
The provision of climate information via websites is commonplace for accessing projections and impact information. However, users of climate information rarely encounter easy to use interfaces that provide robust and relevant information for their needs. This can lead to real world consequences that run counter to what the websites are aiming to achieve. A new FRACTAL study explores a sample of climate information websites (CIW) to draw out key issues for consideration in broader CIW development. ( Hewitson, et a. 2017)
Alternative methods for understanding rainfall over the Congo Basin
Scientists at UMFULA have authored a paper that explores the use of an alternative method that better represents rainfall relationships in climate models. The process of using moisture flux convergence in constraining the rainfall in global climate models could create a better understanding of Congo rainfall climatology and lead to more robust climate projections in the future. ( Creese, A. & Washington, R. 2016)
Using a co-exploration method to integrate climate information into African urban decision-making contexts
A new FRACTAL study shines light on the newly designed framework for facilitating the uptake of climate information into decision-making. The Co-exploration framework allows users and producers of science to work together in an equitable framework to co-explore ideas such as the urban decision-making space. The study draws on a series of workshops held amongst multi-disciplinary teams, highlighting the process and lessons learned. ( Steynor, A. et al. 2016)
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Watch our Recent Webinars
Navigating different sources of climate information for African decision-making
 This webinar by Dr Chris Jack of the University of Cape Town, Principal Investigator for FRACTAL, examines how we navigate the wide range of climate data sources that have the potential to inform and to misinform, including historical observation, global climate models, downscaled climate projections, and a vast array of other science analysis captured in the scientific literature and expert knowledge. Decision-makers across the world are increasingly looking to climate science to provide information to guide their strategies, planning, and implementation. The challenge to climate scientists attempting to provide this information is not lack of data. If anything there is more data than we know what to do with, though frustratingly often no data where we really need it!
What you always wanted to know about central and southern Africa’s climate
This webinar by Dr Neil Hart of the University of Oxford gives a brief introduction to climate systems for central and southern Africa, and overview of some of the research questions that the FCFA teams are pursuing in these regions. The webinar is not for climate specialists but for anyone who is interested in how they could be using climate change information to make more climate-resilient development decisions.
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Blog: Integrating climate information into green growth finance in Rwanda
Rwanda has made significant progress in financing local green growth initiatives. However, integrating climate risks into project design remains a challenge. SouthSouthNorth (SSN), under Future Climate For Africa (FCFA), is assisting Rwanda’s national climate and environment fund (FONERWA) to ensure that green growth projects consider the risks and opportunities that climate change presents. This blog by Julio Araujo and Jean-Pierre Roux explores the nature of the this support, as well as the varous challenges it looks to overcome. |
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