Regional climate change projections: Climate change analysis using CORDEX regional climate models over South Asia

Background

South Asia is highly sensitive to climate variability and change. Climate change is affecting many sectors in South Asia and the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. In recent decades, warming temperatures, increasingly erratic rainfall patterns, and alteration in climatic extremes have had profound impacts on agriculture, biodiversity, water, and ecosystems, affecting lives and livelihoods. To mitigate and adapt to climate-related issues, a thorough understanding of climate change in the past and changes in the future is needed.

Institutional capacity-building approach

The knowledge and capabilities of staff working at key national and regional institutions delivering climate services need to be strengthened to provide information needs for informed climate change responses in South Asia. The Asia Regional Resilience to a Changing Climate (ARRCC) programme, funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), is adopting an institutional capacity-building approach on regional climate projections to help meet this need. This approach aims to develop and deliver training to enhance the institutional capacity of national climate service institutions in focal ARRCC countries and strengthen their capacity to analyse, assess, use, and communicate future climate projections. The approach targets national meteorological and hydrological services and other organizations working to provide climate services to government/non-government organizations, communities, and industrial sectors vulnerable to climate change impacts.

A series of training activities will take place between 2020 and 2022 to build the capacities of individuals at targeted institutions to analyse climate projections and produce information products for use in different sectoral applications. Trainings will be jointly developed and delivered by ICIMOD and the Met Office, UK’s national meteorological agency, with support from other relevant organizations, including the World Climate Research Programme, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) – Pune, where appropriate.

Objectives

The training aims to build underpinning knowledge and skills for analysing regional climate change projections using Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) regional climate model simulations. This training will cover an introduction to climate change science, modelling, and downscaling, followed by an introduction to accessing and using the CORDEX datasets, including introductions to tools for analysing and visualizing climate change projections at different time scales.

On the last day, facilitators and trainees will co-develop a roadmap to support further institutional capacity building on climate change projections and services over the coming years, including shared objectives and an engagement plan for participants with clear roles and responsibilities.

Proceedings of the training on regional climate change projections: Climate change analysis using CORDEX regional climate models over South Asia

Regional climate projections can inform detailed impact and adaptation assessments and planning, especially in vulnerable regions like South Asia. ICIMOD, the Met Office, the World Climate Research Programme, and the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) office organized a six-day training event on regional climate change projections over two weeks in October 2020. The event was supported by the UK-funded Asia Regional Resilience to a Changing Climate (ARRCC) supported the event. Twenty-five participants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan – including eight women – participated. Held over the MS Teams platform, the training covered aspects of climate change science and projections, including how to access and analyse CORDEX data sets. Resource persons guided the participants through the use of open-source tools to analyse and visualize climate change projections at different timescales.

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Agenda List of participants

Expected outcomes

The training will enable participants to better understand climate model projections and science, as well as access and use CORDEX data to broadly evaluate future climate change over areas of interest. Specifically, the participants will:

• Gain an improved understanding of climate modelling and downscaling
• Be able to access and download CORDEX datasets
• Be able to visualize climate change information
• Be able to convert datasets into different temporal resolutions (monthly, seasonal, annual, decadal)
• Inform a roadmap for future training and engagement

 Participation

Participants will include representatives from institutions involved in the production of national or regional climate projections from South Asian national meteorological and hydrological services, including ARRCC focal countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan), regional centres, and research organizations.

Follow-up trainings

This training has been scaled down from the original training, which was designed to be an in-person training. The first follow-up training will be organized in the first quarter of 2021. At that time, all available CORDEX data extraction and visualization will be based on an advance analytical tool. The data extraction can be further segregated into the different physiographic zones (such as elevation and ecological zones) and seasons within the area of interest. A thorough concept of climate change science, projections, and uncertainty analysis will also be included.

Agenda

A broad outline of the training is given below. A detailed agenda for the training will be provided as a separate document. This may be updated over the coming weeks. Timings are in Nepal Standard Time.