Overview on Climate Research

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Overview on Climate Research
Archana Shrestha Climate Section Department of
Hydrology Meteorology NEPAL Monsoon
Institute, 2-12 January, 2008
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• Weather systems in Nepal
• Past research
• Current research
• Regional climate modeling in Nepal
• Future research

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Major Weather Systems
Area 147,181 km2 Length 850 km EW Width
160 km NS Altitude 60-8848 m
Western disturbances
Summer Monsoon
South West Monsoon
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Past Research

• 1. El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related
  variability in mean-monthly streamflow in Nepal,
  Shrestha and Kostaschuk Journal of Hydrology 308
  (2005) 3349

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La Nina Above normalJun-JanEl
Nino Below normalJun-Dec
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Past Research

• 2. Vulnerability Assessment of Weather Disasters
  in Syangja District, Nepal A Case Study in
  Putalibazaar Municipality
• Research followed after the Advanced Institute on
  Vulnerability to Global Environmental Change
• Funded by START
• Papers were proposed to published in two special
  issues Journal for Regional Environmental Change
  (9)and Global Environmental Change (9)

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Few Research Outputs of Vulnerability Institute

• Various perspectives of disaster impacts and
  adaptation and role in reducing vulnerability
  (social and physical)
• Disaster pattern
• Rainfall as an agent for triggering landslide
• Role of Community Based Disaster Preparedness
  (CBDP) Units in Pre and Post-Disaster Adaptation
• Community based disaster insurance as a disaster
  insurance

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Current Research
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1. Advancing Capacity in Climate Change
Adaptation (ACCCA) Project

• Application of Community Based Adaptation
  Measures to Weather Related Disasters in Western
  Nepal Preparation for the Potential Climate
  Change Signal
• Funded by UNITAR and START
• Collaboration with Himalayan Climate Center (PI)
• Pilot actions based on Vulnerability Research
• Objectives
• To develop awareness of the communities of CBDP
  Units
• To establish effective communication between the
  national meteorological service, Nepal Red Cross
  Society, and communities in CBDP Units to
  disseminate information on extreme weather and
  climate events
• To develop and test the concept of community
  based disaster insurance in CBDP units

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Community Based Disaster Preparedness (CBDP) in
Post-Disaster Adaptation

• CBDP
• Trainings
• Alerts and Warnings
• Emergency Rescue and Relief
• Revolving fund
• Economic Recovery-loan
• Hazard Zonation
• Preventive Measures-embankment

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Rainfall as an agent for triggering landslide
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Disaster Pattern
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2. APN Project on Landslides

• Assessing vulnerability of communities and
  understanding policy implications of adaptation
  responses to flood-related landslides in Asia
• Collaboration with Philippines (PI), China,
  Vietnam, Nepal
• Application of an agent-based model (ABM)

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Regional Climate Modeling

• Completed APN-CAPaBLE Project
• Pakistan (PI), Bangladesh,Nepal
• Capacity Building on Modeling
• Climate Change Scenarios
• Ongoing research on climate model

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Model Overview

• Validation of RegCM3
• Comparison with CRU
• Future climate-A2 Scenario (ECHAM5)
• 1961-1990, 2040-2069
• Mean Temperature Precipitation

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Temperature Validation

• Mainly cold bias over country (up to -10oC)
• Warm bias in the northern part of the country (up
  to 8oC in Monsoon and 6oC in winter)

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Annual Cycle
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Precipitation Validation

• Winter
• Over estimation up to 200 in the southeast part
• Monsoon
• Over estimation up to 300 in the North
• Under estimation of up to -15 in the
  south (small area)

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Annual Cycle
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Temperature change

• Winter
• Warming all over the country
• Higher in the north (3.3oC)
• Monsoon
• Warming (2.3oC)
• Higher in the west
• Rate of increase is higher in winter than in
  monsoon

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Temperature Change

• Warming over entire country
• Higher warming rate in the north than in the
  south
• Higher in the west compare to the east

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Change in Annual Cycle
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Precipitation Change

• Decrease in precipitation in the east in winter
• Decrease in precipitation except in the northwest
  in monsoon

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• Decrease in annual precipitation in the country
  except slight increase in the northwest

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Change in Annual Cycle
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Model Tuning

• Emmanuel Convection Scheme
• 90 km resolution
• 4 month simulation (JJAS-1995)
• Two modifications
• Changes in boundary layer forcing
• Time steps of precipitation schemes adjusted
  similar to BATS time step.

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Control Experiment
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90 km 45 km
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Future Research

• Regional climate modeling
• RegCM3, PRECIS
• Climate change
• Seasonal prediction

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Submitted proposal to APN-CAPaBLE

• Adaptation to climate variability and change in
  South Asia through development of seasonal
  forecast (SF) for agriculture perspective
• Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, United Kingdom
• Partners Himalayan Climate Center (PI), Small
  Earth-Nepal
• Capacity building to develop and validate a
  downscaling system to provide probabilistic SF
• Raise awareness on use of these forecasts to
  adapt to climate variability and change and build
  capacity at national (policy/decision-makers) and
  grassroots level in managing and using SF
  information for agriculture purpose
• Develop a dissemination mechanism of SF

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Thank you
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RegCM3 Description

• Dynamical Core primitive equation, hydrostatic,
  compressible, sigma-vertical coordinate model
  based on the hydrostatic version of the NCAR/PSU
  Mesoscale Model version 5 (MM5 Grell et al.
  1994).
• Physics
• Radiative Transfer NCAR CCM3 (Kiehl et al.
  1996).
• Precipitation
• Resolvable (or large-scale) Precipitation
  SUB-grid Explicit moisture scheme (SUBEX) (Pal et
  al. 2000)
• Convective Precipitation
• Modified Anthes-Kuo (Anthes 1977 Giorgi 1991)
• Grell (Grell 1993)  with (Arakawa and Schubert
  1974) and (Fritsch and Chappell 1980) closures
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  (Emanuel 1991 Emanuel and ZivkoviÂc Rothman
  1999)
• Planetary Boundary Layer Holtslag et al. (1990)
  and Holtslag and Boville (1993)
• Biosphere BATS version 1e (Dickinson et al.
  1993)
• Water Bodies
• Open (e.g., oceans)
• BATS (Dickinson et al. 1993)
• Zeng scheme (Zeng et al. 1998)
• Closed (e.g., lakes) one-dimensional, energy
  balance lake model (Hostetler and Bartlen 1990
  Hostetler et al. 1993 Small et al. 1999)
• Atmospheric Aerosols and Chemistry (sulfate,
  organic carbon, and black carbon aerosols) Qian
  et al. (2001) and Solmon et al. (2005).