Welcome to W4404: Regional climate and climate impacts

2 instructors: Alessandra Giannini and Andrew Robertson 3 teaching assistants: Cassy Meyers and ?? lectures twice a week: Mon/Wed 1:10-2:25pm, 603 Scherm 9 homework assignments, 2 take-home questionnaires and a final group project/paper office hours: [lets discuss]

W4404: Regional climate and climate impacts

An opportunity to synthesize and apply what you learned in the fundamentals of the past semester, and what you may be learning in electives this semester

W4404: Regional climate and climate impacts

IRI mission: We use a science-based approach to enhance society's capability to understand, anticipate and manage the impacts of climate in order to improve human welfare and the environment, especially in developing countries. Seasonal to interannual climate change Developing countries/tropical extra-tropical climates Supply (climate science) Demand (societal issue) Adaptation (climate risk management) Mitigation

W4404: Regional climate and climate impacts

Some recurrent issues, when approaching a climate problem : spatial scales, temporal scales: space: point, gridbox, region , country, time: weather, intra-seasonal, interannual, decadal, climate change [natural v. anthropogenic, as in natural decadal v. anthropogenic trend] impacts, vulnerability, resilience points of view perceptions/viewpoints: global and local, north and south human dimension: collaboration among individuals, organizations (research, development, ), governments, credibility, salience and legitimacy dialogue, to ask the right question, frame the problem practically and profitably!

Spatial and temporal scales: Seasonal prediction at a point

Most often, the climatic scale is larger than the problem at hand downscaling

The influence of ENSO on the rainy season in monsoonal Indonesia

Impacts v. vulnerability: Food security and climate change in Mali

Impact: of climate (rainfall) on crop production, on historical time scale extrapolation of historical relationship Vulnerability: how does current climate variability explain the spatial pattern of food security? Food security dimensions: availability and access

Global v. local perceptions of environmental change:

Changes to land use/land cover brought about by soil&water conservation Re-greening of the Sahel, as seen in the positive trend in NDVI, measured from satellites

Herrmann et al 2005

Reij et al 2005

Is there room for local agency in combating climate change? [Mitigation and adaptation]

On the issue of credibility, salience and legitimacy

[Cash et al, 2003 in PNAS]

Oceans caused 20th century Sahel drought

[Giannini, A, R Saravanan, P Chang, 2003. Science, 320, 1027-1030]

Lecture topics: Lectures 02-05: Regional climate basics Mon, 1/23 Climatology: descriptive and dynamic, review of nomenclature Wed, 1/25 Variability: spatial and temporal scales, patterns, predictability Mon, 1/30 Datasets: observations and model simulations, datasets in IRIDL Wed, 2/1 From global to local causes of temperature and precipitation change Mon, 2/6 Climate change context: mitigation and adaptation Lectures 07-11: The Angat case study Wed, 2/8 Introduction to the climate of the Philippines Mon, 2/13 Guest lecture: Someshwar/Baroang, water mgmt. simulation game Wed, 2/15 Seasonal prediction Mon, 2/20 Theories of precipitation change Wed, 2/22 Statistical and dynamical downscaling Mon, 2/27 Climate change context: caveats with downscaling Wed, 2/29 Guest lecture: Simon Mason, on "Verification" Mon, 3/5 Sub-seasonal predictability, prediction Mon, 3/7 Review: Spatial and temporal scales of predictability, predictions and projections

Lecture topics: (continued) Lectures 16-19: The Sahel case study Mon, 3/19 Cause of Sahel drought; influence of oceans, predictability/prediction Wed, 3/21 The "re-greening of the Sahel": impacts, vulnerability and adaptation Mon, 3/26 Statistical downscaling of weather characteristics over Senegal Wed, 3/28 Making sense of mechanisms of climate change across time scales Mon, 4/2 Guest lecture: Pietro Ceccato, on remote sensing Lectures 21-24: The India case study Wed, 4/4 Monsoons Mon, 4/9 Guest lecture: Shama Perveen, on "Agriculture and water" Wed, 4/11 Extremes Mon, 4/16 Guest lecture: Amor Ines, on crop modeling for prediction Wed, 4/18 Review: Climate change, disasters, attribution Lectures 22-24 Mon, 4/23, Wed, 4/25 and Mon, 4/30 Student presentations on group projects

Assignments: 9 homework sets: quantitative, due ~every other week (40% of final grade) regional climatology, seasonality (due 1/30) regional climate variability: correlations (due 2/6) regional climate variability: EOFs (due 2/13) prediction using statistical relationships (due 2/22) prediction using climate simulations (due 2/29) impact of climate on crops: correlations (due 3/26) impact of climate on crops: regression models (due 4/2) analysis of time scales in regional variability using the maproom tool (due 4/9) analysis of time scales using the Angat CRK tool (due 4/16) 2 take-home question sets: broadly based on lecture material (30%) Assigned on a Monday, and due the following Friday, on 3/9 and 4/20 1 final group project/paper (30%) Due Friday, May 4