Climate Change Scenarios for Agriculture Sam Gameda and Budong Qian Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Ottawa, Canada

2 Objective Support the elaboration of climate change scenarios and research on climate variability at the national level (and summarize them at a regional scale to support the formulation of adaptation strategies for agricultural areas) Review of climate change scenarios being developed at global, regional and national levels, and suitable for agricultural impact and adaptation assessments

3 Climate Change Scenarios Range of efforts on developing and using climate change scenarios –Global, Regional IPCC AR4 EU, ENSEMBLES (PRUDENCE, STARDEX, MICE) –National US –Climate Change Science Program, Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources and Biodiversity (2008) –Climate Change Impacts for the Conterminous US (Climatic Change 2005 (Vol 69)) UK, Climate Impacts Program –UKCIP02, UKCIP08 Developing Countries –UNDP Climate Change Country Profiles (52 countries) Canada – Climate Change Scenarios Network Others (China, Australia, New Zealand)

4 Highlights ENSEMBLES – Research and Application Function –Probabilistic estimate of uncertainty in future climate Seasonal, decadal, + –Tool for statistical downscaling –Regional climate data sets Work linked to Evaluation of, and recommendation on, systematic errors in GCM and RCM modelling -higher resolution dynamical and/or statistical downscaling to provide projections and hindcasts

5 Highlights PRUDENCE –High resolution climate change scenarios for for Europe using regional climate models –Estimates of variability and level of confidence in the scenarios STARDEX –Intercomparisons of statistical, dynamical and statistical-dynamical downscaling methods Reconstruction of observed extremes Construction of scenarios of extremes MICE –Direct use of climate models Evaluate capacity of climate models to reproduce observed extremes

6 Highlights UK Climate Impacts Program –Scenarios Gateway page Guidance on scenario use and development Access to maps and datasets Canada – Climate Change Scenarios Network (CCSN) –Network of researchers providing scenarios and advice to the impacts and adaptation community –Provision of CRCM output –On-line automated statistical downscaling tool, based on SDSM

7 General Characteristics Global and regional changes in mean values –Annual, seasonal, (monthly) Useful for determining broad changes, e.g. –Growing season length –Moisture availability –Broad vulnerability to pests, disease Limitations for determining crop dynamics, pest hazard cycles

8 Challenges Extracting/Inferring climate change scenarios from the impact assessments Requirements for developing climate change scenarios at national levels –Data requirements/demands –Technical requirements (RCMs, downscaling tools/methodologies)

9 Recommendations Collaborate with weather generator developers from the Southeast Climate Consortium (SECC) and develop joint efforts for downscaling climate change scenarios Develop downscaled climate change scenarios for the different WMO regions, 0.5 degree (this may require proposal and development of a separate project) Identify agroclimatic indices and extremes important to each region/sub-region Develop agroclimatic fields at regional/sub-regional levels Develop risk maps at regional/sub-regional levels

10 JJA Number of days Tmax≥30˚C ( ) CGCM1 HadCM3

11 Suggestions ? ? ?