Toward usable predictive climate information at decadal timescales

Done, James M.; Morss, Rebecca E.; Lazrus, Heather; Towler, Erin; Tye, Mari R.; Ge, Ming; Das, Tapash; Munévar, Armin; Hewitt, Joshua; Hoeting, Jennifer A.

doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2021.08.013

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(85 reference statements)

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“…Similar to the recommendations for further collaboration made in Section The Need for Enhanced Delivery of Impact-Based Forecasts, enhanced collaboration and knowledge exchange between climate services providers, intermediaries and the users of climate services are an increasingly recognised way of enhancing the utility and use of climate services information (Steynor et al, 2016(Steynor et al, , 2020aJones et al, 2017;Done et al, 2021;Vincent et al, 2021). These transdisciplinary collaborations have also proved to be effective ways of building trust relationships which, in turn, create trust in the resulting climate information (Vincent et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Need For Provision Of Longer-term Climate Projections Al...mentioning

confidence: 82%

Using a Climate Change Risk Perceptions Framing to Identify Gaps in Climate Services

Steynor

Pasquini

2022

Front. Clim.

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Given the rise in climate services for decision-making, it is important to understand whether these services are meeting the context-specific needs of decision-makers, including identifying any gaps in current climate services. This study sets out to investigate the efficacy of current climate services provision in east Africa through the lens of climate change risk perceptions. Risk perceptions have established relationships with important aspects of the decision context and have been shown to influence the kinds of information people use in making decisions, therefore, an understanding of how elements of risk perceptions relate to climate services use can provide valuable insights for enhancing climate services. Using this premise, the relationships between determinants of climate change risk perceptions and the use of climate services information are explored through a combination of statistical survey analysis and qualitative interview analysis. The analysis revealed three main gaps in climate services in east Africa. These gaps include the lack of long-term climate change projections disseminated through National Meteorological Services (NMS), limited locally ground-truthed delivery of impact-based forecasts and the requirement for specialist capacity to use some complex climate services. Filling these gaps will require enhanced collaboration between the NMS, other providers of climate-related information (such as research institutes) and the practitioner and user communities in order to facilitate the coordinated delivery of locally ground-truthed impact-based forecasts, facilitate capacity development across the user-producer spectrum and augment the role of the NMS as conduits of climate change information.

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Section: The Need For Provision Of Longer-term Climate Projections Al...mentioning

confidence: 82%

Using a Climate Change Risk Perceptions Framing to Identify Gaps in Climate Services

Steynor

Pasquini

2022

Front. Clim.

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“…Most of the previous research on decadal climate prediction has concentrated on the predictability of large‐scale climate variability. The decadal timescale is a key planning horizon for many flood risk managers (Done et al., 2021). However, they typically require more fine‐grained information to inform decisions (Dunstone et al., 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research to improve the accuracy of flood predictions has focused on short to medium lead times of up to 12 months in advance (Emerton et al., 2016). In contrast, decadal climate predictions, which forecast the climate system up to 10 years ahead (Done et al., 2021), remain underexplored for flood prediction (Neri et al., 2019). However, predictions of hydrological extremes at annual to decadal lead times are important for near‐term climate planning (e.g., adequate flood protection systems), and may therefore offer significant benefits to society (Meehl et al., 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skillful Decadal Flood Prediction

Moulds

Slater

Dunstone

et al. 2023

Geophysical Research Letters

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Accurate long‐term flood predictions are increasingly needed for flood risk management in a changing climate, but are hindered by the underestimation of climate variability by climate models. Here, we drive a statistical flood model with a large ensemble of dynamical CMIP5‐6 predictions of precipitation and temperature. Predictions of UK winter flooding (95th streamflow percentile) have low skill when using the raw 676‐member ensemble averaged over lead times of 2–5 years from the initialization date. Sub‐selecting 20 ensemble members that adequately represent the multiyear temporal variability in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) significantly improves the flood predictions. Applying this method we show positive skill in 46% of stations compared to 26% using the raw ensemble, primarily in regions most strongly influenced by the NAO. Our findings reveal the potential of decadal predictions to inform flood risk management at long lead times.

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“…Even with access to necessary resources and data, water supply and demand projections remain prone to uncertainty, making it difficult to capture a large watershed's complexity. Projections become less certain over longer future timeframes (Done et al., 2021) and depend on the assumptions made about responses and future actions of individuals and entities operating within the system. For example, water management agencies, who are often the main audience of these types of analyses, may be influenced by the projections themselves, making the actions and projections interdependent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concurrently assessing water supply and demand is critical for evaluating vulnerabilities to climate change

Hall,

Whittemore,

Padowski

et al. 2024

J American Water Resour Assoc

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Aligning water supply with demand is a challenge, particularly in areas with large seasonal variation in precipitation and those dominated by winter precipitation. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this challenge, increasing the need for long‐term planning. Long‐term projections of water supply and demand that can aid planning are mostly published as agency reports, which are directly relevant to decision‐making but less likely to inform future research. We present 20‐year water supply and demand projections for the Columbia River, produced in partnership with the Washington State Dept. of Ecology. This effort includes integrated modeling of future surface water supply and agricultural demand by 2040 and analyses of future groundwater trends, residential demand, instream flow deficits, and curtailment. We found that shifting timing in water supply could leave many eastern Washington watersheds unable to meet late‐season out‐of‐stream demands. Increasing agricultural or residential demands in watersheds could exacerbate these late‐season vulnerabilities, and curtailments could become more common for rivers with federal or state instream flow rules. Groundwater trends are mostly declining, leaving watersheds more vulnerable to surface water supply or demand changes. Both our modeling framework and agency partnership can serve as an example for other long‐term efforts that aim to provide insights for water management in a changing climate elsewhere around the world.

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Toward usable predictive climate information at decadal timescales

Cited by 5 publications

References 57 publications

Using a Climate Change Risk Perceptions Framing to Identify Gaps in Climate Services

Using a Climate Change Risk Perceptions Framing to Identify Gaps in Climate Services

Skillful Decadal Flood Prediction

Concurrently assessing water supply and demand is critical for evaluating vulnerabilities to climate change

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