Evaluating Climate Models with an African Lens

James, Rachel; Washington, Richard; Abiodun, Babatunde J.; Kay, Gillian; Mutemi, Joseph; Pokam, Wilfried M.; Hart, Neil C. G.; Artan, Guleid; Senior, C. A.

doi:10.1175/bams-d-16-0090.1

Cited by 79 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 175 publications

(181 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Scalable solutions are needed, as the breadth of users and applications far exceeds the capacity to develop tailored solutions for all, but innovation is required to ensure that the fundamental limitations of long‐term projections are adequately and transparently represented (Adams et al, ; Hewitson et al, ). Such innovation will require us to develop new ways to assess confidence through expert judgment (Kandlikar, Risbey, & Dessai, ; Mastrandrea et al, ; Thangaratinam & Redman, ), supported by thorough model evaluation and scientific understanding (Hewitson et al, , ; James et al, ). Methods to distil the consequences of these evaluations for decision‐makers are lacking but should be prioritized.…”

Section: Conclusion and Key Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the use and misuse of climate change projections in international development

Nissan¹,

Goddard²,

Pérez

et al. 2019

WIREs Climate Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate resilience is increasingly prioritized by international development agencies and national governments. However, current approaches to informing communities of future climate risk are problematic. The predominant focus on end-of-century projections neglects more pressing development concerns, which relate to the management of shorter-term risks and climate variability, and constitutes a substantial opportunity cost for the limited financial and human resources available to tackle development challenges. When a long-term view genuinely is relevant to decisionmaking, much of the information available is not fit for purpose. Climate model projections are able to capture many aspects of the climate system and so can be relied upon to guide mitigation plans and broad adaptation strategies, but the use of these models to guide local, practical adaptation actions is unwarranted. Climate models are unable to represent future conditions at the degree of spatial, temporal, and probabilistic precision with which projections are often provided, which gives a false impression of confidence to users of climate change information. In this article, we outline these issues, review their history, and provide a set of practical steps for both the development and climate scientist communities to consider. Solutions to mobilize the best available science include a focus on decision-relevant timescales, an increased role for model evaluation and expert judgment and the integration of climate variability into climate change services. This article is categorized under: Climate and Development > Knowledge and Action in Development K E Y W O R D S climate change adaptation, climate change projections, climate resilience, climate services, international development

show abstract

Section: Conclusion and Key Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the use and misuse of climate change projections in international development

Nissan¹,

Goddard²,

Pérez

et al. 2019

WIREs Climate Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Combined with the region's low adaptive capacity and reliance on rain‐fed agriculture, such changes may amplify existing stressors (Niang et al, ). In recent years, there has been increased scientific interest in both the physical mechanisms and the impacts of climate change over Africa, a region that has historically received limited scientific attention (Farnsworth et al, ; Rachel James et al, ; Washington et al, ). Research into climate change in the continent has focused predominantly on the subregions of West Africa and the Sahel (e.g., Biasutti & Sobel, ; Cook & Vizy, ; Hoerling et al, ; James et al, ; Vizy et al, ), East Africa (e.g., Hirons & Turner, ; Kent et al, ; Shongwe et al, ), and southern Africa (e.g., Kay & Washington, ; Lazenby et al, ; Shongwe et al, ) and has led to an improved understanding of the climate systems and projections in these areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Plausibility of September–November Congo Basin Rainfall Change in Coupled Climate Models

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As one of three global hot spots of tropical convection, potential future changes to the Congo Basin climate system will have regional and tropics‐wide implications. However, the latest generation of climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 disagree on the sign and magnitude of future change and diverge in their estimation of the historical rainfall climatology. This study assesses the plausibility of different signals of future rainfall change by examining the processes relating to rainfall projections in samples of historically wet or dry models during the September–November rainy season. In the west Congo Basin, there are no significant differences in rainfall change projections in models that are historically wet or dry. Both composites feature wetting in the north (up to 1.8 mm/day) and drying in the south, associated with enhanced tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures, increased evaporation, and enhanced low‐level moisture flux into the basin. In the east Congo Basin, there is greater evidence that differences in model historical climatologies has an influence on the magnitude of future rainfall change. Historically wet models project significant wetting in the northeast (1.19 mm/day) associated with a weakened northern component of the African Easterly Jet (AEJ) and enhanced moisture convergence. Dry models do not capture the structure of the AEJs in the historical period, and so changes to the AEJs under warming do not produce the same wetting pattern. The analysis therefore casts doubt on the plausibility of the driest rainfall change signals in the east Congo Basin.

show abstract

“…When these air masses, moistened by the lake, lift up into the atmosphere, they generate convective precipitation and often thunderstorms (Docquier et al, 2016;Thiery et al, 2015Thiery et al, , 2016. The African Great Lakes are thus important regulators of the East African climate, which continues to present a challenge to modellers (James et al, 2018;Woodhams et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the effect of rainfall on the surface temperature of a tropical lake

Rooney

Lipzig

Thiery

2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. We make use of a unique high-quality, long-term observational dataset on a tropical lake to assess the effect of rainfall on lake surface temperature. The lake in question is Lake Kivu, one of the African Great Lakes, and was selected for its remarkably uniform climate and availability of multi-year over-lake meteorological observations. Rain may have a cooling effect on the lake surface by lowering the near-surface air temperature, by the direct rain heat flux into the lake, by mixing the lake surface layer through the flux of kinetic energy and by convective mixing of the lake surface layer. The potential importance of the rainfall effect is discussed in terms of both heat flux and kinetic energy flux. To estimate the rainfall effect on the mean diurnal cycle of lake surface temperature, the data are binned into categories of daily rainfall amount. They are further filtered based on comparable values of daily mean net radiation, which reduces the influence of radiative-flux differences. Our results indicate that days with heavy rainfall may experience a reduction in lake surface temperature of approximately 0.3 K by the end of the day compared to days with light to moderate rainfall. Overall this study highlights a new potential control on lake surface temperature and suggests that further efforts are needed to quantify this effect in other regions and to include this process in land surface models used for atmospheric prediction.

show abstract

Evaluating Climate Models with an African Lens

Abstract: Africa lags the rest of the world in climate model development. This paper explores the potential for region-specific, process-based evaluation to promote progress in modeling and confidence assessments.

Cited by 79 publications

References 175 publications

On the use and misuse of climate change projections in international development

On the use and misuse of climate change projections in international development

The Plausibility of September–November Congo Basin Rainfall Change in Coupled Climate Models

Estimating the effect of rainfall on the surface temperature of a tropical lake

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About