The common denominator for countries in Southeast Asia is that they are dependant on the monsoon rain for water and food production. If the monsoon subsides, there will be a drought. If there is too much rain, then there will be great flooding.
Several billion people live in the Asian monsoon area but climate research has up to now not been able to clearly answer how the monsoon will change with global warming.
Eystein Jansen, director for the Bjerknes Centre, points out that one of the Bjerknes Centre´s missions is to study regional climate changes on a global perspective.
"It is both extremely important and there is an exciting academic challenge connected to producing better climate scenarios for areas in South Asia. Not in the least that this is maybe the most important area in the world when pertaining to the need to adjust to climate changes and reduce the climatic risk factors. Especially when this has to do with several hundred billion people. We will contribute to this with our expertise" Eystein Jansen says.
At the beginning of June, representatives from all of the four collaborating partners were by chance in Bergen at the same time. Three scientists from India and two Ph.D. students from China were here working on the collaboration project. The collaboration partners came from Thailand and Bangladesh for a project visit.
From the front left: Michel d. S Mesquita , Abu Syed, Eystein Jansen and Atiq Rahman. Back left: Tore Furevik, Birgit Falch and Bichit Rattakul. Photo: Gudrun Sylte
Little democratic climate consequences
Atiq Rahman is world renowned for his research on the effects of climate change. He is the director for the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) in Dhaka. While visiting Bergen he also held a guest lecture at the Geophysical Institute.
"The future climate changes will ram hardest those that have the least. This global warming is not democratic" Rahman said in his lecture.
In tropical areas, where the population is most dense and many people live below the poverty line, climate change will have the greatest consequences. This is because global warming doesn’t distribute heat equally, but also because poor lands have bad infrastructures to meet the consequences. While there is expected less temperature increases in the northern areas, can one have up to a two-degree temperature increase in South East Asia.
Climate in the tropical zones are characterized by dry winters and rainfall rich monsoons in the summer. If the monsoons change, this will affect agriculture. Too much water, too little water, water at the wrong time or moment, these all have consequences for food production.
Preparing for Climate changes
Rahman points out Bangladesh as a crowning example of unfortunate circumstances with a temperature increase of 2 degrees. The rivers that originate from the Himalayas will rise if the glaciers melt and rainfall increases, and increases the risk for floods and larger floods than before.
An increase in the sea level of a meter will put 17% of Bangladesh under water and create 20 million climate refugees. More and stronger cyclones will bring more saltwater into land and acres and make it difficult for food production.
"The only way we can meet this challenge is to prepare ourselves for climate changes. This applies as an example, with the building of roads and buildings, many are studying ways to build floating houses" Rhaman says.
From Bangladesh’s perspective it is time to get the world together with a cost sharing group to help those who are hardest hit, and who contribute the least to human CO2 emissions, to be better prepared to meet the affects of temperature increases and the increase of cyclones. In Copenhagen at COP15, the goal was to establish a fond for adapting to climate change. But the world’s countries meant that there was no money to use. Rahman thinks that this will change with time.
Read about Rahman also at På Høyden and at uib.no/aktuelt (only in norwegian)
Three party collaboration
Also at the meeting in Bergen together with Rahman and Abu Syed from BCAS was Rattakul Bhichit, the director for Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) in Bangkok.
"We are now working hard on realizing a 3 party collaboration with both BCAS and ADPC for a long-term partnership in the region" Eystein Jansen says.
With the project collaboration with BCAS and ADPC, we are working on capacity building by increasing understanding of climate modelling and using the model results for climate adaptation studies, in addition to arranging data that can be used to improve and quality control model scenarios for these areas. This is mostly rainfall increase, drought and flood problems.
Another collaboration between ADPC and the Bjerknes Centre is a project that concentrates on downscaling of climate date for Nepal. This project will last for a year and is financed by The Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Downscaling of global models
The collaboration programs with the Asian institutes all has something in common. This is mostly because the tropics generally will be more susceptible to climate changes and the effects of these, especially since a large part of the most poverty stricken in the world live in these tropical regions.
The project deals with capacity building in relationship to climate modelling. By downscaling the global Norwegian Earth System model (NorESM) to a regional scale of the tropical areas, one can get an understanding about a part of the consequences of possible future climate changes for the actual regions.
The 3 scientists from India Saurabh Bhardwaj, Nehru Machineni and Vidynmala were in Bergen 3 weeks at the end of May. While here, they worked together with Michel d.S. Mesquita on training and downscaling of the NorESM-model, and downscaling of this for the Indian regions.
From the left: Vidynmala Veldore, Michel d.S Mesquita, Nehru Machineni and Saurabh Bhardwaj. Photo: Gudrun Sylte
The Bjerknes Centre´s collaboration partner in India is the independent research institute TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, which is lead by Dr. Rajendra K. Pauchari. He is probably better know as the leader for IPCC and the Nobel Prize winner in 2007.
“We work with climate modelling on a government project, to advice the governments´ political strategy towards climate changes. India is a large country and every state has its own challenges to meet with the climate changes. Some states meet problems with an increase in sea levels, others with flood, food safety, immigration. India doesn´t have just one challenge but many and they are unique for the unique states,” says Saurabh Bhardwaj. Together they have developed an animation over the storm system in the tropical regions around the world.
See the animation:
Model simulated animation for the tropical regions, by using the Weather Research Forecasting Model. The resolution is 36 km. (Veldore, Mesquita, Lunde, Bhardwaj og Machineni, TERI – BCCR 2011)
“In India, we see that the storm intensity will increase. Not in the anticipation of more storms, but stronger cyclones. One of the projects in the collaboration is mapping of storms,” says Vidynmala Veldore.
With supervisor in Bergen and Beijing
Since the middle of April, Tao Wang and Feifei Luo have had their workplace at the Geophysical Institute. Normally, they are Ph.D. students at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing. They both participate in the DecCen project and have therefore supervisors in both Bergen and Beijing.
The project started in 2009, where Norwegian and Chinese scientists work together to better understand the natural variations in the climate of East Asia. This will be done through a combination of fieldwork to reconstruct the climate, modelling of the climate and analysis of new and existing climate data.
“In China we research mostly Asia and the monsoon. With this project we increase our research area. I am now working with temperature variations in the North Atlantic, and how these affect the climate in South and East Asia. The collaboration with Bergen gives me a broader look at research, “ says Feifei Luo.
This is the second time that Luo and Wang visit Bergen, they were both here 3 months last year also. This yearly research exchange is a part of the agreement to secure a joint effort and continuity in the project.
Robust against monsoon changes
With the help of observations and models, one can through the project also study similar variations in the climate at unique stages on the planet. Through unique experiments with the models one will try to find the common causes in the observations. Particularly relevant is looking at mechanisms for how snow and ice cover in the northern areas, sea temperature in the North Atlantic and the tropics, can affect the air pressure and the rain pattern over China.
In addition, one can research to what degree outer influences such as greenhouse gases and variations in incoming radiation and volcano eruptions can help to explain the observed changes in the Asian climate.
The northern part of China, like India, is dependent on monsoons. Through many decades there has been a tendency toward weakening of the Asian monsoon. This gives less rainfall and drought in the north, and more rainfall and floods in the south.
Tao Wang (left) and Feifei Luo are enjoying their visit in Bergen, much smaller that their home of Beijing. Photo: Gudrun Sylte
It is normal that the strength of the Monsoon rain across all of Asia varies from year to year, but the variations can have great consequences. There can be drought and famine or flood and catastrophes. Knowing more about the monsoon system is decisive so that the population can be more prepared for future climate changes. But as Vidynmala Veldore from Teri explains it: “The tropics are difficult to understand, the weather system is more complex than in other places.”
In addition to the Asia program that has already started, there can also be several collaboration projects in Asia in the future. The Bjerknes Centre is working together among others on an application under the India program of the Norwegian Research Council.
“We also have plans on project applications from international sources such as the World Bank, and we hope for continued support from the State Department (UD) for capacity building and partnership collaboration with the leading institutions in several lands in Southern Asia,” says Eystein Jansen.