Walker, Hadley, Supply, Demand

Geospatial Modeling and Preventing Famine

Chris Funk

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center & UCSB Geography Dept-Climate Hazards Group

Collaborators

UCSB Geography: Joel Michaelsen, Greg Husak, Mike Marshall, Park Williams, Greg Ederer, Pete Petersen, Laura Harrison, Diego Pedreros, Frank Davenport

Africa: Gideon Galu (Kenya), Tamuka Magadzire (Gabarone), Alkhall Adoum (Niamey)

US: Molly Brown (NASA), Jim Verdin (USGS), Mike Dettinger (USGS), Matt Barlow (UMASS), Jim Rowland (Artic Slope/USGS), Tanya Boudreau (FEG), Andrew Hoell (UMASS)

Climate Hazard Group & the USAID Famine Early Warning System Network

Famine Early Warning Systems• In 1984/85 over a million Ethiopians died from

starvation– Mostly children & women, mostly from disease

• In response, the US and Europe created food security early warning systems– Monitor environmental and social conditions– Inform early and effective humanitarian intervention

• Highly integrative geographic science– Effective at saving lives– Need better adaptation science

Monitoring and assessing El Niño’s possible food security

impacts

House Foreign Affairs CommitteeOctober 2, 2009

4

Source: USGS EWX

Poor rains, March‐May 2009 Poor rains, June‐July 2009

How should we plan for El Niño in the Horn of Africa?

Plan for a bigger problem. Rains have already been poor in most of 2009

http://zippy.geog.ucsb.edu:8080/EWX/index.html

So, how should we plan for El Niño in the Horn of Africa?

Understand that it’s not only El Niño; climate change is also present

Last 4 rainy seasons are worst ever.

Main season rainfall decreasing, while second season is increasing 

Almost 20% drop in main season rainfall since 1980

C. Funk/USGS

Funk & Verdin, 2009, Real time applications of satellite precipitation estimates

Sept 2009: Warm anomalies (>+0.6C) areoccurring in areas that are verywarm. This could increase precipitationover the ocean, reduce it over land.

So, how should we plan for El Niño in the Horn of Africa?

With added concern for anomalous warming now in the Indian Ocean

USGS and NOAA

Caution: Might El Niño instead bring a poor season to the Horn?

So, how should we plan for El Niño in the Horn of Africa?

Even more concern as anomalous rainfall IS ALREADY occuring

USGS and NOAA

Surface wind and precipitation anomalies

Warm anomalies (>+0.6C) areOccurring in areas that are veryWarm. This drives precipitationOver the ocean.

… ocean warming also contributes to drier main seasons in Southern

Africa

C. Funk/USGS

Funk et al, 2008, Proceedings

Current outlook: assuming more rains

October - December 2009July - September 2009

FEWS NET Food Insecurity Severity Scale

Generally food secureModerately food insecureHighly food insecureExtremely food insecureFamine

An elderly woman is given water in the Turkana region of Kenya. Many of the elderly are too weak and sick to feed themselves or drink

The aid community in Kenya has been predicting a disaster for months, saying this could be the worst drought in more than a decade. World Vision is distributing emergency rations to the

hardest hit areas.

Walker 1:While we have confidence in IPCC temperature projections, we

should not use raw IPCC rainfall over land

Funk & Brown, Food Security, 2009

Walker 2: Indian Ocean impacts on eastern African rainfall

Observations and model simulations showing decreased moisture transports and increased subsidence over the Horn of Africa.

By Andy Hoell

By Matt Barlow

PNAS, 2008

Walker 3: Multi-model ensembles of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project central Indian Ocean Precipitation

PNAS, 2008

Hadley 1: Components of the Pacific Trade Circulation

Walker

Hadley 1: Components

Circulation Index Annual/Decadal Correlations (1951-2008)

Variable Pr UQ HGT UT GISST NINO3.4 PDO DMI

JFM 0.8/0.9 ‐0.8 /‐0.9 0.9/1.0 0.7/0.8 0.8/1.0 ‐0.2/0.0 0.4/0.7 0.0/0.4

AMJ 0.8/0.9 ‐0.9/1.0 0.9/0.9 0.8/0.8 0.6/0.9 ‐0.4/0.1 0.2/0.5 0.0/‐0.4

JAS 0.7/1.0 ‐0.9/‐0.9 0.8/0.9 0.8/0.9 0.7/0.9 ‐0.4/0.5 0.0/0.4 0.0/‐0.7

OND 0.8/1.0 ‐0.8/‐0.9 0.8/0.9 0.8/0.9 0.7/0.9 ‐0.5/‐0.1 ‐0.3/0.1 0.0/‐0.6

ANN 0.9/0.9 ‐0.9/‐0.9 0.9/0.9 0.8/0.8 0.7/0.9 ‐0.5/0.0 0.0/0.4 0.0/‐0.6

Pacific Hadley Index = (PHI = Prz-Uqz+HGTz+UTz)/3.0

PHI and Related Time-series1900-2008, smoothed

Western Pacific GHCN data

SST trends and means

Radiosonde Changes in Lower T

Park Williams

TMAX – CMIP3

Elena Tarnavsky

Very good chance of anthropogenic drought

Science, 2008

-5-4-3-2-1012345

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Anomalies

(CMIP3 TS)TB(obs)

Supply, Demand and Food Insecurity

• Limited food availability- not enough • Limited food access - too expensive• Limited nutrition - wrong type

• Insecurity = Shock x Vulnerability

Climate trends Population & agriculture trends

1 billion people are food insecure (FAO)3 billion people are malnourished (WMO)

cycles of poverty

Why do we need trend analyses?

• Better disaster response– Decreasing per capita food availability

increases vulnerability– Repeated shocks have a multiplier effect

• Better adaptation– Food insecurity is becoming chronic– ‘Band aid’ solutions do not address core

problems

Environmental Security as trend interaction

• Population• Urbanization• Ecosystem health• Land degradation• Cultivated land area• Yields• Water efficiency• Rainfall• Temperature• …..

Drought =Supply +Demand

Global →Regional →Localadaptation is fundamentally geographic

Trend 1: Global Commodity Prices

Global food crisis …

Trend 1: Local Food Prices

WHOLESALE PRICES OF WHITE MAIZE (USD/MT)

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Nairobi Addis Ababa Dar es Salaam Kampala

Trend 2: population grows faster than yields→ Global per capita cereal

production is declining→ East Africa yield growth

stalled, population grows

Food Security, 2009

Agricultural development can help

PNAS, 2009

Agricultural Adaptation Can Happen

• In Malawi, subsidies have led to a doubling of yields– 100 kg of fertilizer, 3-5 kg of improved seeds*– $5 per person per year

• Millenium villages show promise – Doubling of yields in some cases *

*Sanchez et al., 2009

Agricultural Development Spreadsheet

Cost per ton Food Required recipients in GHA, based on30 million people

Food Required recipients in GHA, based on30 million people

Maize in Kenya $400 per ton 570,000 tons $228 Million

Cost of US AID to Kenya

$800 per ton 570,000 tons $456 Million

Input cost to produce an extra ton of maize

$135 per ton 570,000 tons $77 Million =51 houses in Santa Barbara

Kenyan Agricultural Solutions

Per Capita Cereal Production Projections

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yield 3%, pop 3% yield 3%, pop 2% yield 0%, pop 3%

Frank Davenport

Environmental Security*• Boosting water productivity will be critical

– 90% of water consumed by agriculture• Adaptive cropping practices can help:

– Less maize, more traditional crops– Local hybrids (not GMOs)

• Inexpensive inputs can improve soil quality– Both organic and inorganic fertilizer– Ag improvements can sequester carbon

• Triple bottom line water management– Efficiency, equity, environmental protection

* Khan et al., 2009

2030 Climate Change Analysis Framework

• Translate “warming” into climate variations

• Specify the impacts on crops and livestock

• Understand the shocks on livelihoods

• Inform adaptationefforts

Related CHG Research Efforts

• Cropped Area Estimation– Greg Husak

• Satellite Precipitation Estimates– Michaelsen, Pedreros, Funk, Petersen

• Global Agricultural Monitoring– Ederer, Husak, Funk

• Land Data Assimilation– Funk, Marshall, ???

• Climate change/adaptation research– Harrison, Davenport, Marshall, Pedreros

Summary• ‘Drought’ is a function of supply and demand• Focus on IPCC rainfall simulations over the oceans,

rather than land• Indian Ocean warming is causing drought in Eastern

Africa, and perhaps southern Asia• Green revolution is a plausible and highly effective

adaptation strategy• Support for a demographic transition is equally

important • ‘Environmental Security’ requires sustainability

Thanks!

Better Communication?

Better Science?

Better Adaptation?

Dr. David Jonah Western, Executive Director of the African Conservation Centre, will speak on the currentKenyan drought and long term pastoral monitoring

Thursday, 12:00-2:00 Ellison 5824Landscape linkages, mobility, drought and climate change

Summary of Publications• Funk C. and Verdin, J. (2009) Real-time Decision Support Systems: The Famine Early Warning System Network

(2009) Chapter 17 for: Satellite Rainfall Applications for Surface Hydrology, by Springer-Verlag. Edited by Gebremichael MeKonnen and Faisal Hossain. In press.

• Funk, C. and Brown M. (2009) Declining Global Per Capita Agricultural Capacity Production and Warming Oceans Threaten Food Security, Food Security. http://www.springerlink.com/content/fw645377u3587404/fulltext.pdf

• Brown, M. E. and Funk, C. (2008) Food Security under Climate Change, Science, 319, 580–581. http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/adds/pubs/PerspectivesPiece_and_Letter.pdf

• Funk C., Dettinger M., Michaelsen J.C., Verdin J.P., Brown M.E., Barlow M., Hoell A. (2008) Warming of the Indian Ocean threatens eastern and southern African food security but could be mitigated by agricultural development. Proceedings of the National Academy, 105, 11081–11086.http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/adds/pubs/WarmingInTheIndianOceanThreatensEasternAndSouthernAfrica.pdf

• Funk, C. and Brown, M., 2005, A maximum-to-minimum technique for making projections of NDVI in semi-arid Africa for food security early warning, Rem. Sens. Env (101): 249-256. http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/adds/pubs/ndvi_projections.pdf

• Verdin J., Funk C., Senay, G., Choularton, R. (2005) Climate Science and Famine Early Warning, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B (360): 2155-2168. http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/adds/pubs/Climate%20Science%20and%20Famine%20EW.pdf

• Funk, C., Senay, G., Asfaw, A., Verdin, J., Rowland, J., Michaelsen, J., Eilerts, G., Korecha, D., Choularton, R. (2005) Recent Drought Tendencies in Ethiopia and equatorial-subtropical eastern Africa, FEWS NET Special Report. http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/adds/pubs/RecentDroughtTendenciesInEthiopia.pdf

• Funk, C., Asfaw, A., Steffen, P., Senay, G., Rowland, J., Verdin, J. (2003) Estimating Meher Crop Production Using Rainfall in the ‘Long Cycle’ Region of Ethiopia. FEWS NET Special Report.http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/adds/pubs/EthProductionOutlook.pdf