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

该项目将进一步了解在当前气候和全球变暖条件下，降雨和温度的分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些先进知识的最佳实践。第一项任务需要(i)根据有限的站点数据、卫星、再分析和统计气象生成器，为萨赫勒地区建立相关数据集（例如，开始日期、干旱期频率、高降雨事件和热浪）；（ii）在观测和气候模式模拟中分析这些气候指数在国家和区域尺度上的变率；（三）评估它们在21世纪预估中的变化。为了确定这些气候指数是否对区域农业产出有显著影响，它们将被用作作物模型的输入，并在农业和经济产出的回归分析中作为预测因子。第二项任务将通过对成功缔结的国际协定和在《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分析来完成。这项分析将确定最佳分配资源所需资料的性质，以及这些资料应以何种形式构成，以使谈判人员最容易理解和最有用。特别是，分析将确定如何将不确定性措施作为额外的、有价值的资料纳入谈判进程。这个项目将为气候科学家和经济学家提供一个模板，让他们能够以一种对政策产生最大影响的方式来构建和公布他们的发现。它是作为案例研究而建立的。该项目首先将寻求进一步了解在人为影响的全球变暖影响下，季风和半干旱气候下极端降雨和高温将如何变化。然后，该项目将根据是否部署适应战略来评估这些变化对区域作物的影响。调查人员将传播一份最新的、最先进的评估报告，该报告的框架特别有助于适应计划和适应基金的谈判。该项目还将有助于培养气候科学、作物建模、可持续发展和法律等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.