Projecting Climate Impacts

The Earth System Physics (ESP) section at ICTP is helping countries in the developing world cope with the impact of climate on their livelihood.

From 5 to 16 September, ESP is holding a 'Summer School on Climate Impacts Modelling for Developing Countries', with support from the World Meteorological Organization and the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme.

The school introduces the notion of 'impacts modelling', which uses dynamical or statistical models to convert climate data into impact projections for various sectors such as health, agriculture and water. These conversions are rarely done in developing countries, but could supply them with a valuable source of short- and long-term projections for factors affecting the daily lives of their people.

School participants, comprising young researchers from developing countries, are learning about the use and uncertainty of observational datasets available from remote sensing and of short-range to seasonal forecast products and climate model data from major numerical weather prediction and climate centres, including the IPCC assessment climate integrations.

"With this training, participants could advise their respective governments for planning water resources, water use for energy, and so on," said school director and ICTP scientist Adrian Tompkins.

The school will be followed by a workshop on the 'Quantified Weather and Climate Impacts on Health in Developing Countries (QWeCl)' project, which unites climate experts with health professionals to develop a computer model of climate and disease interactions that will aim to provide reliable forecasts of epidemic disease outbreaks.

For more details about the school, visit its website.