SASSCAL is a joint initiative of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Germany, responding to the challenges of global change.
The establishment of a Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) creates added value for the whole southern African region.
Its mission is to conduct problem-oriented research in the area of adaptation to climate change and sustainable land management and provide evidence-based advice for decision-makers and stakeholders to improve the livelihoods of people in the region and to contribute to the creation of an African knowledge-based society.
Development of a user friendly regional climate modelling system
High-Performance supercomputer (left) and modern desktop workstation (right). © IBM/Dell
Most of the global and regional climate models only run on high performance computers that are connected to expensive computing centers. Therefore, access to climate models and the required computing facilities is limited to a small number of institutions mainly outside of SASSCAL.
On the other hand, modern desktop computers are getting faster, theoretically allowing to run long-term simulations. In our contribution we reprogramed the existing regional climate model REMO (Jacob, 2001) in a way that parts of the calculations are sourced out to graphical processing units, so that the time for the simulation is shortened.
Additionally, in order to provide non-climate scientists in the SASSCAL region better access to the model, a user-friendly model version called EasyREMO was developed.
further information on EasyREMO
Extending the database for regional climate change assessment and uncertainty analysis
The regional climate model (RCM) projection ensemble of the CORDEX initiative provides a wide number of different downscaled RCP projections (Moss et al., 2010) from general circulation models (GCMs).
Initially, an evaluation of the size and of the GCM-RCM-Scenario combinations of the already available regional climate models ensemble will be carried out. Furthermore, uncertainty and robustness of the climate change projections will be analysed. Based on the results, five additional transient regional climate change projections will be conducted using the regional climate models REMO. The data of these five additional projections will be provided to the SASSCAL partners.
Capacity Building Workshops
Key element of the GERICS activity in SASSCAL is capacity building. Two kinds of workshops will be conducted.
Firstly, training workshops on the application of the desktop version of the regional climate model REMO and on the interpretation of its results will be held.
Secondly, the work-shops will focus on the analysis and interpretation of regional climate change projections with respect to uncertainty and robustness measures and will be con-ducted jointly with SASSCAL partner institutions.
SASSCAL
member countries: Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Zambia
MoU GERICS-SASSCAL since October 2019
new project SASSCAL-TIPPECC (2022-2025, GERICS website in progress), project partners:
o University of Witwatersrand South Africa (coordinator)
o GERICS-Hereon
o Friedrich Schiller University Jena
o University of Zambia
o University of Botswana
o Gobabeb-Namib Research Institute Namibia
Literature
- Jacob, D. (2001): The role of water vapour in the atmosphere. A short overview from a climate modeller’s point of view. Phys. Chem. Earth A 26 (6–8):523–527.
- Moss, R.H., Edmonds, J.A., Hibbard, K.A., Manning, M.R., Rose, S.K., van Vuuren, D.P., Carter, T.R., Emori, S., Kainuma, M., Kram, T., Meehl, G.A., Mitchell, J.F.B., Nakicenovic, N., Riahi, K., Smith, S.J., Stouffer, R.J., Thomson, A.M., Weyant, J.P. and T.J. Wilbanks (2010): The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment. Nature 463: 747–756, doi:10.1038/nature08823.
- Van Vuuren, D.P., Edmonds, J., Thomson, A., Riahi, K., Kainuma, M., Matsui, T., Hurtt, G.C., Lamarque, J.-F., Meinshausen, M., Nakicenovic, N., Smith, S.J. and S.K. Rose (2011): Representative concentration pathways: an overview. Climatic Change, 109: 5-31, doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0148-z.