Coping with climate variability and change in the Greater

Horn of Africa: ICPAC’S Experience

Christopher OludheIGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC)

Formerly Drought Monitoring Centre - Nairobi (DMCN)

www.icpac.net

WMO side event at the UNFCCC COP11 Montreal, Canada, 1 December, 2005

KEY ISSUES

• Brief history of ICPAC

• ICPAC’s objectives and activities

• Climate Change Signals in GHA

• Impacts of climate variability and change in the GHA region

• Challenges of coping with climate change variability and change in GHA

• Conclusions

BRIEF BRIEF HISTORY ABOUT ICPACHISTORY ABOUT ICPAC• The Greater Horn of Africa (GHA), like

many other parts of the tropics, are prone to extreme climate events such as droughts and floods.

• In an effort to minimise the negative impacts of extreme climate events, WMO and UNDP established a regional Drought Monitoring Centre (DMC) in Nairobi and a sub-centre in Harare in 1989 which covered 24 countries in the eastern and southern African sub-region.

Cont..Cont..

• At the end of the UNDP funded project in 1998

• DMC (Harare) - SADC region

• DMC (Nairobi) - IGAD & GHA region

• In 2003, DMCN became a Specialised Institution of IGAD and was renamed ICPAC

• ICPAC participating countries include Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.

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ICPAC PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES IN THE GHA

ICPAC’S OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIESICPAC’S OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

Objective• To contribute to climate monitoring and

prediction services for early warning and mitigation of the adverse impacts of extreme climate events on various socio-economic sectors in the region. The early warning products enable users to put mechanisms in place for coping with extreme climate and weather related risks for sustainable development in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA).

Operational Activities• Development and archiving of

regional and national quality controlled climate databanks

• Data processing including development of basic climatological statistics

• Timely acquisition of near real-time climate and remotely sensed data

• Monitoring space-time evolutions of weather and climate extremes over the region

• Generation of climate prediction and early warning products

• Delineation of risk zones of the extreme climate related events

• Enhanced networking with the NMHSs, regional and international centers for data and information exchange

• Timely dissemination of early warning products

• Conduct capacity building activities in the generation and application of climate products

• Organization of climate outlook forums for the GHA countries

• Enhancement of interactions with users through users workshops and pilot application projects

• Climate change monitoring, detection and attribution

ICPAC PRODUCTSICPAC PRODUCTSDEKADAL PRODUCTSDEKADAL PRODUCTS

• Rainfall distribution• Drought severity• Agrometeorological

conditions• General impacts• Weather outlook• Cumulative time

series graphs

MONTHLY AND SEASONAL MONTHLY AND SEASONAL PRODUCTSPRODUCTS

• Climatological summaries• Drought severity• Agrometeorological

conditions • Dorminant Synoptic

systems• Climate outlook.• General impacts• Pre - season consensus

outlooks

CLIMATE CHANGE SIGNALS IN GHACLIMATE CHANGE SIGNALS IN GHA

• Climate change is never abrupt but its signals are indicated by way of extreme climate variability.

• Data from the African Climate Centres, including IGAD Climate prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), have noted evidences of changes in lake levels; retreat in tropical mountain glaciers, some trends in the recurrences and severity of the floods and droughts in most parts of the GHA.

Long-term fluctuations of Lake Victoria, based on both historical information and modern measurements at Jinja, Uganda

: Gradual disappearance of Mt. Kilimanjaro glaciers

Gradual disappearance of Mt. Kilimanjaro glaciers

YEAR TO YEAR CLIMATE FLUCTUATIONS, 50 YEARS

(FLOODS ALMOST ALWAYS FOLLOW DROUGHTS)

Trend of MAM seasonal rainfall in Dar-es-salaam

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Rainfall trend for Khartoum

Impacts of climate variability and change in the GHA region

FLOODING IN WESTERN KENYA

SUBMERGED REFUGEE CAMPS IN KENYA

CHALLENGES OF COPING WITH CLIMATECHALLENGES OF COPING WITH CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND CHANGE IN THE GHAVARIABILITY AND CHANGE IN THE GHA

CLIMATE OBSERVATION AND DATA BASE• High quality data is central in climate

change detection, monitoring, modeling, attribution and impacts / vulnerability assessments. ICPAC works very closely with the member countries to improve the climate observation network in the region.

• However, due to limited observational network, the available information is not adequate to fully understand climate variability and change in the region.

• ICPAC has already developed a GCOS implementation plan for enhanced climate change observation system in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) through Monitoring of the tropical mountain Glaciers; establishment of regional urban climate change monitoring framework; and development of a Regional Climate change data and information center. ICPAC is hopeful that the plan will be implemented.

• The limited climate database archived at ICPAC is used in developing climate indices as well as climate risk zone mapping in terms of floods or droughts. Database of long series is however still a major problem in the region with several missing observations. There is need for data rescue in the region to improve climate data base.

CAPACITY BUILDINGCAPACITY BUILDING

• Capacity building in areas of data management / processing, Climate change modeling and building of regional climate change scenarios; are also being undertaken at ICPAC.

• However, the centre is still not strong in modeling and scenario building.

EDUCATION AND AWARENESS• ICPAC has strong education and

awareness programmes that include organization of climate users’ forum twice a year. ICPAC also has a close link with the media sector. ICPAC has established a regional network for the climate and the media experts.

• Since most policies are silent on climate issues, ICPAC has undertaken a number of projects to sensitize policy makers on Integrating climate information in poverty alleviation, disaster management and sustainable development strategies.

PREDICTION AND EARLY EARNINGPREDICTION AND EARLY EARNING

• With regard to understanding the causes of floods/drought in the region, ICPAC, through its research division, have examined the role of the global oceans in determining rainfall variability within the GHA region.

• Various indices such as ENSO, NAO, and the IOD among others are now being used to provide the climate of the region several months in advance.

• ICPAC/NMHSs gives daily, 10 day, monthly / seasonal climate outlooks.

OBSERVED AND PREDICTED SONDRAINFALL OVER LAMU, KENYA (N.Coast)

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R2 = 75%

Training period Verification

CONCENSUS OUTLOOK FORECASTS AND USERS FORUM, COF16 SEPT –DEC 2005

Cumulative Rainfall Stress

SECTOR SPECIFIC USERS OF CLIMATE INFORMATION FOR SECTOR SPECIFIC USERS OF CLIMATE INFORMATION FOR COPING WITH CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND CHANGECOPING WITH CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND CHANGE

• ICPAC has undertaken several pilot studies with a number of partners addressing various climate risk management challenges, and coping with climate variability and Changes

• Some of the sectors include among others: - Agriculture and livestock sector - Water resources; - Energy ; - Health; - Transport (Air, road, and water systems);- Tourism, Wildlife, Hotels, and recreation

sectors;- Infrastructure and Constructions;;- Environment management;

DEMONSTRATED APPLICATION OF THE CLIMATE OUTLOOK PRODUCTS

The construction and repair works on dykes along Nzoia River were put in place due to early Warnings issued by ICPAC and Kenya Met Dept. (KMD)

Flood control measures

Water Harvesting in ASAL Areas

In the Arid or Semi-Arid Lands, rain water harvesting methods have been encouraged apart from drilling of bore holes to reduce the impact of persistent water shortages due to drought.

Sand Dam filled with water in Muthetheni, Machakos district

Comparison between Observed and Predicted Thiba OND Inflow anomaly between 1982 - 2001

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Seasonal prediction of below normal inflows into the major hydropower dams allows generation companies to put in place thermal power generation to bridge the gap.

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Draft: FSOF – Jan2006

Food Security situation in the Region

CONCLUSIONSCONCLUSIONS• A change in climate will have significant

impact on many socio-economic activities. • Using today’s information on climate

variability can greatly assist in finding solutions to coping with the future changes in climate.

• Climate data and observational network needed to monitor, understand, detect, predict and attribute the complex and closely related climate change processes is still a major problem in the region. ICPAC would like to appeal for support in the improvement of the observational network in the region.

• ICPAC is active in the science, impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in the region. However, the modeling capabilities is still weak in the region and ICPAC is appealing for support to build the capacity of scientists in area of climate change modeling.

• Indigenous knowledge (IK) is very critical when it comes to coping with climate variability and change. There is need therefore to promote the understanding of IK as a tool for coping with future climate changes.

• Climate change is multidisciplinary and needs to be addressed through the same approach. ICPAC is initiating pilot application studies on climate change issues to assess how sectors will cope with future climate change.

• No country can achieve sustainable development strategies if the negative impacts of the climate hazards including climate changes are not well factored into the national development plans.