Simplified Equation Models for Greenhouses Gases Assessment in Road Transport Sector in Burkina Faso

Transport sector is cited among the key emitted sector. In Burkina Faso, road transport occupies more than 60% of the emissions of the entire transport sector. However, there is no model equation for greenhouse gases modelling in transport sector. A methodology combining literature review and survey has been adopted to develop the simplified model equation in transport sector. The vehicle type survey allowed the identification of the type of vehicle and the literature review allowed the identification of the key parameters used for greenhouses gases modelling. The results revealed 10 vehicle types for road transport in Burkina Faso such as: Private cars, Public Transport/Buses, Special Vehicle (Ambulances, Fire bus, Funeral vehicles), other vehicle, Motorcycles, Wheeler, Rail, Van, Lorries and Truck Tractor. The keys parameters for greenhouse gases modelling are Fleet availability, Average annual distance travelled, Fuel Economy and Fuel emission factor. For all vehicle type identified simplified model equation was developed to support Burkina Faso, assessing greenhouse gases emission in the sector of transport. This approach could be replicated in other countries in the sub-Saharan Region

Climate change to severely impact West African basin scale irrigation in 2 °C and 1.5 °C global warming scenarios

Abstract West Africa is in general limited to rainfed agriculture. It lacks irrigation opportunities and technologies that are applied in many economically developed nations. A warming climate along with an increasing population and wealth has the potential to further strain the region’s potential to meet future food needs. In this study, we investigate West Africa’s hydrological potential to increase agricultural productivity through the implementation of large-scale water storage and irrigation. A 23-member ensemble of Regional Climate Models is applied to assess changes in hydrologically relevant variables under 2 °C and 1.5 °C global warming scenarios according to the UNFCCC 2015 Conference of Parties (COP 21) agreement. Changes in crop water demand, irrigation water need, water availability and the difference between water availability and irrigation water needs, here referred as basin potential, are presented for ten major river basins covering entire West Africa. Under the 2 °C scenario, crop water demand and irrigation water needs are projected to substantially increase with the largest changes in the Sahel and Gulf of Guinea respectively. At the same time, irrigation potential, which is directly controlled by the climate, is projected to decrease even in regions where water availability increases. This indicates that West African river basins will likely face severe freshwater shortages thus limiting sustainable agriculture. We conclude a general decline in the basin-scale irrigation potential in the event of large-scale irrigation development under 2 °C global warming. Reducing the warming to 1.5 °C decreases these impacts by as much as 50%, suggesting that the region of West Africa clearly benefits from efforts of enhanced mitigation

A tale of two futures: contrasting scenarios of future precipitation for West Africa from an ensemble of regional climate models

The results of a large ensemble of regional climate models lead to two contrasting but plausible scenarios for the precipitation characteristics over West Africa; one where mean precipitation is projected to decrease significantly over the Gulf of Guinea in spring and the Sahel in summer, and the other one where summer precipitation over both regions is projected to increase. Dry and wet models show similar patterns of the dynamic and thermodynamic terms of the moisture budget, although their magnitudes are larger in the dry models. Largest discrepancies are found in the strength of the land-atmosphere coupling, with dry models showing a marked decrease in soil moisture and evapotranspiration. Some changes in precipitation characteristics are consistent for both sets of models. In particular, precipitation frequency is projected to decrease in spring over the Gulf of Guinea and in summer over the Sahel, but precipitation is projected to become more intense

Robust late twenty-first century shift in the regional monsoons in RegCM-CORDEX simulations

AbstractWe use an unprecedented ensemble of regional climate model (RCM) projections over seven regional CORDEX domains to provide, for the first time, an RCM-based global view of monsoon changes at various levels of increased greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing. All regional simulations are conducted using RegCM4 at a 25 km horizontal grid spacing using lateral and lower boundary forcing from three General Circulation Models (GCMs), which are part of the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5). Each simulation covers the period from 1970 through 2100 under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5). Regional climate simulations exhibit high fidelity in capturing key characteristics of precipitation and atmospheric dynamics across monsoon regions in the historical period. In the future period, regional monsoons exhibit a spatially robust delay in the monsoon onset, an increase in seasonality, and a reduction in the rainy season length at higher levels of radiative forcing. All regions with substantial delays in the monsoon onset exhibit a decrease in pre-monsoon precipitation, indicating a strong connection between pre-monsoon drying and a shift in the monsoon onset. The weakening of latent heat driven atmospheric warming during the pre-monsoon period delays the overturning of atmospheric subsidence in the monsoon regions, which defers their transitioning into deep convective states. Monsoon changes under the RCP2.6 scenario are mostly within the baseline variability

Projected changes in temperature and precipitation over the United States, Central America and the Caribbean in CMIP6 GCMs

The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) dataset is used to examine projected changes in temperature and precipitation over the United States (U.S.), Central America and the Caribbean. The changes are computed using an ensemble of 31 models for three future time slices (2021–2040, 2041–2060, and 2080–2099) relative to the reference period (1995–2014) under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs; SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5). The CMIP6 ensemble reproduces the observed annual cycle and distribution of mean annual temperature and precipitation with biases between − 0.93 and 1.27 °C and − 37.90 to 58.45%, respectively, for most of the region. However, modeled precipitation is too large over the western and Midwestern U.S. during winter and spring and over the North American monsoon region in summer, while too small over southern Central America. Temperature is projected to increase over the entire domain under all three SSPs, by as much as 6 °C under SSP5-8.5, and with more pronounced increases in the northern latitudes over the regions that receive snow in the present climate. Annual precipitation projections for the end of the twenty-frst century have more uncertainty, as expected, and exhibit a meridional dipole-like pattern, with precipitation increasing by 10–30% over much of the U.S. and decreasing by 10–40% over Central America and the Caribbean, especially over the monsoon region. Seasonally, precipitation over the eastern and central subregions is projected to increase during winter and spring and decrease during summer and autumn. Over the monsoon region and Central America, precipitation is projected to decrease in all seasons except autumn. The analysis was repeated on a subset of 9 models with the best performance in the reference period; however, no signifcant diference was found, suggesting that model bias is not strongly infuencing the projections.Universidad de Costa Rica/[805-B9-454]/UCR/Costa RicaNational Science Foundation/[AGS-1849654]/NSF/Estados UnidosNational Science Foundation/[AGS-1623912]/NSF/Estados UnidosDepartment of Energy/[2316‐T849‐08]/DOE/Estados UnidosNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/[2316‐T849‐08]/NOAA/Estados UnidosUCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigaciones Geofísicas (CIGEFI)UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (CIMAR

The climatic impact‐driver framework for assessment of risk‐relevant climate information

The climate science and applications communities need a broad and demand-driven concept to assess physical climate conditions that are relevant for impacts on human and natural systems. Here, we augment the description of the “climatic impact-driver” (CID) approach adopted in the Working Group I (WGI) contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report. CIDs are broadly defined as “physical climate system conditions (e.g., means, events, and extremes) that affect an element of society or ecosystems. Depending on system tolerance, CIDs and their changes can be detrimental, beneficial, neutral, or a mixture of each across interacting system elements and regions.” We give background information on the IPCC Report process that led to the development of the 7 CID types (heat and cold, wet and dry, wind, snow and ice, coastal, open ocean, and other) and 33 distinct CID categories, each of which may be evaluated using a variety of CID indices. This inventory of CIDs was co-developed with WGII to provide a useful collaboration point between physical climate scientists and impacts/risk experts to assess the specific climatic phenomena driving sectoral responses and identify relevant CID indices within each sector. The CID Framework ensures that a comprehensive set of climatic conditions informs adaptation planning and risk management and may also help prioritize improvements in modeling sectoral dynamics that depend on climatic conditions. CIDs contribute to climate services by increasing coherence and neutrality when identifying and communicating relevant findings from physical climate research to risk assessment and planning activities

Assessment of CMIP6 performance and projected temperature and precipitation changes over South America

We evaluate the performance of a large ensemble of Global Climate Models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) over South America for a recent past reference period and examine their projections of twenty-first century precipitation and temperature changes. The future changes are computed for two time slices (2040–2059 and 2080–2099) relative to the reference period (1995–2014) under four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs, SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, SSP3–7.0 and SSP5–8.5). The CMIP6 GCMs successfully capture the main climate characteristics across South America. However, they exhibit varying skill in the spatiotemporal distribution of precipitation and temperature at the sub-regional scale, particularly over high latitudes and altitudes. Future precipitation exhibits a decrease over the east of the northern Andes in tropical South America and the southern Andes in Chile and Amazonia, and an increase over southeastern South America and the northern Andes—a result generally consistent with earlier CMIP (3 and 5) projections. However, most of these changes remain within the range of variability of the reference period. In contrast, temperature increases are robust in terms of magnitude even under the SSP1–2.6. Future changes mostly progress monotonically from the weakest to the strongest forcing scenario, and from the mid-century to late-century projection period. There is an increase in the seasonality of the intra-annual precipitation distribution, as the wetter part of the year contributes relatively more to the annual total. Furthermore, an increasingly heavy-tailed precipitation distribution and a rightward shifted temperature distribution provide strong indications of a more intense hydrological cycle as greenhouse gas emissions increase. The relative distance of an individual GCM from the ensemble mean does not substantially vary across different scenarios. We found no clear systematic linkage between model spread about the mean in the reference period and the magnitude of simulated sub-regional climate change in the future period. Overall, these results could be useful for regional climate change impact assessments across South America

Burkina Faso – Land, climate, energy, agriculture and development: A study in the Sudano-Sahel Initiative for Regional Development, Jobs, and Food Security

In this working paper, the biophysical factors and socio-economic conditions that led to Land Use and Land Cover Changes (LULC) and land degradation in Burkina Faso are reviewed. It is found that the country is densely populated and population continues to rise at a rate of more than 3% a year. However, nearly half of the population still lives below the poverty line. The electrification relies heavily on fossil fuels as the country has limited hydropower potential and solar energy received little investment. The rate of electrification is still very low, triggering the use of other sources of energy derived from firewood in rural areas. In addition, Burkina Faso has experienced land degradation in the North as a consequence of the 1970s and 1980s droughts that struck all the Sahel. Subsequently, migration took place from the degraded areas to the central, western and southern regions of the country causing further LULC changes. Furthermore, the country suffers from the effects of climate change and climate variability through increasing temperature trends, highly variable precipitation regimes and intensification of extreme events. Projected changes reveal prevailing conditions that indicate an increased risk of disasters in the agriculture, water and health sectors, among others. Due to this situation, some technological responses and policy actions have been developed for sustainable land management and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The adopted technological approaches include, among others, irrigation expansion and efficiency, rainwater harvesting, crop diversification, adoption of drought-tolerant crop varieties and rotational grazing. Some policies have been put in place to facilitate the adoption of these technologies. They consist of carbon trading, land-use zoning and integrated landscape planning, payment for ecosystem services, providing access to markets and agricultural advisory services, securing land tenure and empowering women. These actions are part of broader programs and investment plans that include, but not limited to, the Strategic Framework for Poverty Reduction (SFPR), the Strategy for Accelerated Growth and Sustainable Development (SCADD), the National Rural Sector Program (PNSR), the Resilience and Support Plan for Vulnerable Population (RSPVP) and the Cereals Price Stabilization Program (CPSP) among others

Climate change to severely impact West African basin scale irrigation in 2 °C and 1.5 °C global warming scenarios

Abstract West Africa is in general limited to rainfed agriculture. It lacks irrigation opportunities and technologies that are applied in many economically developed nations. A warming climate along with an increasing population and wealth has the potential to further strain the region’s potential to meet future food needs. In this study, we investigate West Africa’s hydrological potential to increase agricultural productivity through the implementation of large-scale water storage and irrigation. A 23-member ensemble of Regional Climate Models is applied to assess changes in hydrologically relevant variables under 2 °C and 1.5 °C global warming scenarios according to the UNFCCC 2015 Conference of Parties (COP 21) agreement. Changes in crop water demand, irrigation water need, water availability and the difference between water availability and irrigation water needs, here referred as basin potential, are presented for ten major river basins covering entire West Africa. Under the 2 °C scenario, crop water demand and irrigation water needs are projected to substantially increase with the largest changes in the Sahel and Gulf of Guinea respectively. At the same time, irrigation potential, which is directly controlled by the climate, is projected to decrease even in regions where water availability increases. This indicates that West African river basins will likely face severe freshwater shortages thus limiting sustainable agriculture. We conclude a general decline in the basin-scale irrigation potential in the event of large-scale irrigation development under 2 °C global warming. Reducing the warming to 1.5 °C decreases these impacts by as much as 50%, suggesting that the region of West Africa clearly benefits from efforts of enhanced mitigation