Value of the GENS Forecast Ensemble as a Tool for Adaptation of Economic Activity to Climate Change
Abstract
In an atmosphere of uncertainty as to the magnitude and direction of climate change in upcoming decades, one adaptation mechanism has emerged with consensus support: the upgrade and dissemination of spatially-resolved, accurate forecasts tailored to the needs of users. Forecasting can facilitate the changeover from dependence on climatology that is increasingly out of date. The best forecasters are local, but local forecasters face great constraints in some countries. Indeed, it is no coincidence that some areas subject to great weather variability and strong processes of climate change are economically vulnerable: mountainous regions, for example, where heavy and erratic flooding can destroy the value built up by households over years. It follows that those best placed to benefit from forecasting upgrades may not be those who have invested in the greatest capacity to date. More-flexible use of the global forecasts may contribute to adaptation. NOAA anticipated several years ago that their forecasts could be used in new ways in the future, and accordingly prepared sockets for easy access to their archives. These could be used to empower various national and regional capacities. Verification to identify practical lead times for the economically important variables is a needed first step. This presentation presents the verification that our team has undertaken, a pilot effort in which we considered variables of interest to economic actors in several lower income countries, cf. shepherds in a remote area of Central Asia, and verified the ensemble forecasts of those variables.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFM.U21A0007H
- Keywords:
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- 0402 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Agricultural systems;
- 1699 GLOBAL CHANGE / General or miscellaneous;
- 1816 HYDROLOGY / Estimation and forecasting;
- 6309 POLICY SCIENCES / Decision making under uncertainty