"AgMIP CLARE provides methodologies, tools and data that enable scientists to access and analyse future climates scenarios and climate projections in Zimbabwe."
As climate change takes its toll on Southern Africa’s livelihoods, food security, lives, energy access, and agriculture, Zimbabwe is not spared. Critical challenges for developing countries such as Zimbabwe are skills and capacity to determine and understand the vulnerability of different social and economic sectors. Zimbabwe lacks the necessary capacity in climate data analysis and technical skills to select appropriate climate models which assist in accurately answering questions such as the “adapt to what” - what is the magnitude and direction of change expected, where and when. Past adaptation efforts, policies, strategies, and practice have largely been informed by the then available model data without adequate interrogation of the models themselves. This could lead to mal-adaptation and inconsistencies.
Climate models that provide some means of determining or understanding future conditions in view of climate change are therefore crucial. The increasing number of models has however also brought challenges as there are conflicting model results which confuse the practitioners and policymakers in terms of what they should be preparing for or answering the ‘adapt to what’ question.
Furthermore, capacity to access and let alone downscale or analyse climate models in most of our government institutions within Zimbabwe and most developing African countries is limited. Resultantly, most national and key strategic climate analyses and projects have been reliant on one or two universities outside Zimbabwe to access climate model data, especially future climate projections. Due to the complexity of the climate modelling discipline itself, many researchers within the country found it difficult to access and analyse climate data.
AgMIP provides easy to use tools which include climate future climate projections for almost all the models available in the earth system grid. Furthermore, AgMIP provides the required tools such as R-programming scripts which can be adapted to any part of the world by simply inputting the coordinates of the area under review. This enables scientists, even those without much detailed knowledge about programming, to be able to access and analyse future climates scenarios and climate projections.
"The methodology gives scientists, policymakers, and practitioners an understanding of the likely climate direction or the convergence or divergence of models when it comes to the future scenarios. It also enables researchers to understand the certainties around climate modelling or the confidence in the projections which could be carried to the impact studies."
In my work within the Department of Climate Change Management and as a climate scientist I found the AgMIP tools and data being user friendly. I used the AgMIP T & P GCM Model section approach in my doctorate research, which sought to understand and investigate the historical and future climate dynamics in Zimbabwe, to select representative models for use analysis of climate projections and investigation of the impact of climate change on maize production.
This methodology enables classification of climate models as hot/cold or dry/wet to enable better appreciation of possible skewness of the model results. This is transformative in that it gives scientists, policymakers, and practitioners an understanding of the likely climate direction or the convergence or divergence of models when it comes to the future scenarios. It also enables researchers to understand the certainties around climate modelling or the confidence in the projections which could be carried to the impact studies. I also applied the knowledge gained from AgMIP in contributing towards reviewing the climate model results of the National Water Resource Master Plan development.
In providing the methodologies, tools and data, AgMIP deals with challenges that come with the monopoly associated with climate modelling development within the sub region as previously, few scientists were able to venture into climate modelling space. I therefore recommend that AgMIP methodologies, tools and data be made more available to universities, researchers, young scientists and technical departments in government so that more work is done to better understand the climate of Zimbabwe in southern Africa. This will not only contribute to the knowledge on rainfall and climate change or climate dynamics but aid climate action, decision-making and policy-making which will ultimately enhance food security, livelihoods, Disaster RR and climate risk management.
