NASA study looks at climate prediction accuracy

According to a post on Universe Today in this new NASA study:

"...scientists analyzed the GISTEMP data to see if past predictions of rising temperatures were accurate. They needed to know that any uncertainty within their data was correctly accounted for. The goal was to make sure that the models they use are robust enough to rely on in the future. The answer: Yes they are. Within 1/20th a degree Celsius."

The above map (NASA) represents global temperature anomalies averaged from 2008 through 2012. Note that for our part of the world there seems to be a rise of between half and one degree Celsius.

Climate Resilience Strategy and Action Plan (CRSAP) - draft released

The Office of Climate Change has released the draft CRSAP for Guyana for public review until 18th December. This plan is important and is intended to guide action (and funding) for years to come. This document of nearly 300 pages is fairly technical and cannot be summarised easily so here is a part of the executive summary:

"Climate models project that temperatures will continue to increase and that sea levels and the height of storm surges will rise. Projections also indicate that average annual precipitation will decrease and that the proportion of heavy rainfall events will increase. These in turn are expected to exacerbate adverse social, economic and environmental impacts, and act additional stress factors on systems with vulnerabilities derived from non-climate drivers."

"Specifically, the CRSAP provides:

• A roadmap for the next five years.

• Project Concept Notes for four priority climate resilience programmes which can now be

• developed into full proposals and submitted for funding.

• A summary of the most significant climate risks and required resilience actions across 15

• key sectors. These actions are proposed as the basis for the design of new interventions and

• a pipeline of projects which can be presented for funding and implemented within five years

• and beyond.

• A set of capacity building actions that enhance Guyana’s capacity for national adaptation

• planning and becoming climate resilient to be undertaken within the next five years.

• A strategy to finance the CRSAP inclusive of the PCNs."

El Nino due this year

El Nino is a periodic phenomena brought about by large scale changes in sea surface temperature in the eastern Pacific. This leads to world-wide changes in weather. According to this item in Scientific American the expected El Nino later this year is likely to be strong may be like that of 1997:

"So where does that leave us in terms of looking ahead to what El Niño might bring this winter? We have an event that is looking more and more robust (when comparing June 2015 to June 1997, the broad ocean temperature patterns are very similar) and forecasting models are in pretty good agreement that that event will strengthen as we head towards winter and El Niño’s typical peak. But exactly when it will peak and what its final strength will be is still uncertain."

Guyana was badly hit by drought produced by El Nino in 1997. Here is a quote from a UN report from that time:

"Guyana is subject to a period of unprecedented drought caused by the El Nino phenomenon that has been found responsible for as much as 90 per cent of the deficiency in rainfall in September and October 1997 and for the complete failure of a rainy season in mid-November 1997 to mid-January 1998."

No doubt preparations are being made and we have learnt from past lessons.

World Bank climate change MOOC

This is called 'Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided' and is being hosted by Coursera. It is being well-presented by a selection of experts in the usual Coursera format.  It is not a difficult course especially if you are familiar with the topic. Plenty of discussion. Recommended.

I am still hoping to see more Caribbean participants - only a small handful so far.

Weather forecasting in Guyana

Weather forecasting in Europe and North America has become routine and quite accurate over periods of a few days so why cannot our local forecasts be as good?
There are many factors involved here but the main difficulty is that, due to the tropical climate, weather comes about by different processes which are hard to forecast by computer simulation.
Singapore has a similar climate and similar problems though they have a much larger and better funded meteorological service. An explanation on the website of their National Environment Agency in answer to the question 'Why is it challenging to forecast the weather in Singapore?' says, in part:

'In the tropics, the weather systems are largely driven by prevailing winds whereby small changes in the wind speed and direction can result in significant changes in weather. The problem is compounded because winds near the equator are generally quite light and variable, and thus more difficult to predict.'

The item goes on to offer a more detailed explanation which I do not repeat here. But briefly we do not get frequent 'fronts' which bring much of the weather 'up north' but have instead many small local storms mainly generated by convection.
However, science is progressing and improvements in our forecasts can be expected once we have the human and technological resources. In recent times our meteorological service has been very short of the resources it needs to produce the best forecasts possible at present.

Comment on climate change

I hope to do a few quick posts to catch up so here goes... the first is to note a useful comment by Derek A Braithwaite in a letter to Stabroek News almost a month ago. He was commenting positively on the recent LCDS and focuses on the need for adaption as well as mitigation. He also mentions our need for computer simulations of climate change which are used extensively to try to predict the effects of climate change.

This is of special interest to me since I worked for a couple of years on early versions of these models at UK Met Office HQ in the 70's and have kept an interest in the field since.

A comment on this letter ascribes the whole problem to global population increases - this is only a small part of the problem. Here in Guyana our population has remained relatively constant but our emissions are rising due development and greater use of electicity, cars etc. Similar changes are occuring in other developing countries such as India, China and in Afica.