Climate Analogues

Development of an analogue method for examining both spatial and temporal analogues based on multiple climate projections

Background

It is expected that changes in climate baseline, variability and extremes will have far-reaching consequences on agricultural production posing additional challenges to reach sustainable food security for the world's growing population. Future farming and food systems will face substantial though different changes in their environments. Climate will migrate among regions bringing winners and losers and disproportionally affecting poor and marginalized farmers that have a lower capacity to adapt. To achieve adapted farming systems for changing climate conditions in space and time we need to develop new technologies and modeling activities across a range of pilot sites. However, to test and validate meaningful adaptation practices and policies, a major constraint is to overcome is the difficulty to imagine what the future climate in a particular area will look like.

Objectives

To develop an initial analogue methodology and proof of concept for identifying and mapping spatial and temporal analogue sites across the globe based on multiple climate projections. To provide insights into the vulnerability of crops to climate change and support field evaluation, using today's climate, of agricultural adaptation options for 2030 and beyond.

Outputs

Development of the methodology which allow searching and identifying location-specific temporal and spatial analogue areas via web-based maps

A tool that allows

Exploration of dissimilarity/similarity across few sites, or across an entire geographic area (i.e. to find new places) under either present or future conditions, as long as the datasets are available, displaying the outputs on a map
To use three different measures (indices) of climatic dissimilarity
To perform analyses from 1km resolution to any resolution the user might desire.

Partners

Walker Institute for Climate System Research, University of Reading, UK. Leader: Josh Hooker

Timeframe

Initial phase: Aug-Dec 2010. It will be followed in 2011 by an implementation phase including case studies in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and West Africa and a training workshop.

Website

http://code.google.com/p/ccafs-analogues/

Related publications