Collaborative Research: Use of Climate Information in International Negotiation for Adaptation Resources

该项目将促进了解在当前气候和全球变暖条件下，降雨和温度的次季节变化如何影响非洲萨赫勒地区的农业生产。 该项目还将确定如何向决策者传达这种先进知识的最佳做法。 第一项任务需要（i）建立相关数据集（ii）通过有限的台站数据、卫星、再分析和统计天气生成器分析萨赫勒地区的气候指数（例如，开始日期、干旱期频率、高降雨量事件和热浪）;（ii）在观测和气候模式模拟中分析国家和区域尺度上这些气候指数的变异性;及（iii）评估其在21世纪预测中的变化。 为了确定这些气候指数是否对区域农业产出产生重大影响，将把它们用作作物模型的输入，并作为农业和经济产出回归分析的预测因子。 第二项任务将通过对成功缔结的国际协定和《联合国气候变化框架公约》范围内正在进行的谈判进行法律的分析来完成。 这项分析将确定最佳资源分配所需信息的性质，以及这种信息应采用何种形式，以便使谈判者最容易理解和最有用。 特别是，分析将确定如何将不确定性的度量作为额外的、有价值的信息纳入谈判进程，该项目将提供一个模板，供气候科学家和经济学家如何以最大的政策影响力来构建和公布他们的研究结果。 它是作为一个案例研究建立的。 该项目首先将寻求进一步了解在受人类影响的全球变暖的影响下，季风和半干旱气候中降雨和热量的极端情况将如何变化。 然后，该项目将评估此类变化对区域作物的影响，具体取决于是否部署了适应战略。 调查人员将分发一份最新的、最先进的评估报告，该报告的编写特别有助于适应规划和适应基金的谈判。 该项目还将有助于教育气候科学，作物建模，可持续发展和法律领域的下一代跨学科学者。

This project will advance understanding of how sub-seasonal variability in rainfall and temperature can affect agricultural production in the African Sahel in the current climate and under global warming conditions. The project also will identify best practice for how to convey such advanced knowledge to policy makers. The first task requires (i) building the relevant datasets (for example, onset dates, frequency of dry spells, high rainfall events, and heat waves) for the Sahel from limited station data, satellites, reanalysis, and statistical weather generators; (ii) analyzing the variability of these climate indices at the country and regional scale in observations and in climate model simulations; and (iii) assessing their changes in 21st century projections. To identify if these climate indices have a significant effect on regional agricultural output, they will be used as input for crop models and as predictors in a regression analysis of agricultural and economic output. The second task will be accomplished by a legal analysis of successfully concluded international agreements and of on-going negotiations within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The analysis will identify the nature of the information needed for the best allocation of resources, and the form in which such information should be framed in order for it to be most comprehensible and useful to negotiators. In particular, the analysis will identify how measures of uncertainty can be brought into the negotiation process as additional, valuable information.This project will provide a template for how climate scientists and economists can frame and promulgate their findings in a way that will have the greatest policy impact. It is built as a case study. The project first will seek to advance understanding of how extremes in rainfall and heat will change in a monsoonal and semi-arid climate under the effect of human-affected global warming. The project then will assess the influence of such changes on regional crops, depending on whether or not adaptation strategies are deployed. The investigators will disseminate an up-to-date, state-of-the-art assessment report that is framed especially as an aid to adaptation planning and to negotiations for adaptation funds. The project also will contribute to educating the next generation of interdisciplinary scholars in the fields of climate science, crop modeling, sustainable development, and the law.