Climate information crucial for disaster risk reduction

Forecasts can play an invaluable role when used properly in helping humanitarian agencies and governments plan for and prevent disasters, according to the latest Climate and Society publication launched by the IRI and the American Red Cross last week in Washington D.C.

Climate and weather disasters, from the massive floods in Pakistan, Australia and Colombia, to the devastating drought in Niger, have claimed thousands of lives and caused billions of dollars in damages in the last year. According to statistics from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, these types of disasters have risen significantly in the last few decades. Scientists expect changes in climate will make extreme events more frequent and intense in the future.

Governments and humanitarian organizations, such as the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) are placing greater emphasis on trying to prevent and minimize the impact of disasters by making earlier and better informed decisions ahead of time. The new report, called A Better Climate for Disaster Risk Management, is the latest in the IRI’s Climate and Society series. The IRI published the report in partnership with OCHA, IFRC, WFP, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“This is an important report that shows how scientists and practictioners can come together to describe a better recipe for meeting enormous global problems related to climate and the growth of natural disasters,” said Jan Egeland during the launch event. Egeland is the Executive Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and co-chair of the High-Level Taskforce for the Global Framework for Climate Services. He is also on the IRI’s Board of the Directors. “In my view, far too little is being invested in disaster risk reduction and far too little in climate services,” he said. Watch interviews of Jan Egeland and Madeleen Helmer, who is the Director of Policies and Communication at the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre.

Read the full news here: http://bit.ly/kr9ALl

Are Haitians Vulnerable to Climate?

We just put out an informative Q+A over on the IRI site about the risks from climate that the people of Haiti may face in the coming year. Currently, about a 1.2 million Haitians are without proper shelter, and an additional 470,000 have been displaced from their homes, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. This situation leaves them vulnerable to storms and extreme weather events in the coming months.

Here are a few excerpts:

Q: We’re currently in an El Niño period. Is this expected to change the climate outlook for Haitians?

Tony Barnston: Haiti’s rainy season is long. As I mentioned above, it actually has two peaks, with a brief period in July that has relatively lower rainfall. We expect the current El Niño to persist through at least March, and possibly through May. During times of El Niño, the region around Port-au-Prince tends to get above-normal rainfall from late winter to around May. But we can’t be sure the El Niño will still exist in May. We’ll have a better idea in the coming months.

Alessandra Giannini: Let’s remember that we are talking about the impact of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in its weakening phase, which is different from that in its growing phase. Right now, El Niño’s impact on Haiti is mostly indirect, resulting from warming in the tropical North Atlantic over the past six months. That’s why we also need to consider North Atlantic atmospheric circulation, captured in something called the North Atlantic Oscillation. The NAO was in its negative phase in December 2009, meaning that trade winds were weakened. This situation contributed to ocean warming, because there was less evaporation happening on the surface waters. So if the NAO lasts in its negative state from December to March, it will favor the continuation of these warm conditions, which are the basis for the above-normal rainfall predictions that Tony mentioned above.

Q: And what about the second half of the rainy season– after July?

Tony Barnston: The rainfall expectation for the second half of Haiti’s rainy season will depend in part on the direction of the ENSO state this summer– will it be toward another El Niño, La Niña or neutral? At this time of year we currently have poor predictability for ENSO beyond about May or June. An unfavorable scenario for Haiti would be for the development of La Niña during the summer. It would not only imply a wet second half of its rainy season, but also the chances for a tropical hurricane in the vicinity, or even a hurricane hit. As these maps show, La Niña conditions tend to not only increase the total number of hurricanes in the Atlantic, but also increase the number that cut across the Caribbean. In 2008, Tropical Storm Fay, Hurricane Gustav, Hurricane Hanna and Hurricane Ike pounded Haiti, leaving widespread destruction and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Read the rest on the IRI’s web site.

Video on Climate Information for Humanitarian Preparation

Using Climate and Weather Forecasts to Improve Humanitarian Decision Making: A Partnership to Save Lives from IRI on Vimeo.

Our posse put together a brief video that highlights the partnership between the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre. We pulled it to together in record time for COP 15. I’m lucky to be able to work with a talented group- thanks Jason, Lisette and Michelle!

Climate information hot topic in World Disasters Report

The latest World Disasters Report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies argues that disaster-relief agencies need to shift focus from expensive response operations to cost-effective prevention measures. An important component of this, the report details, is using climate records, monitoring and forecasts to make planning decisions days, weeks, even months ahead. This, of course, is what the International Research Institute for Climate and Society is all about, and our work is mentioned numerous times throughout the document.

Read the whole story on the IRI home page.

Disasters: Shifting from Response to Prevention

I posted a web story on the IRI home page about the wonderful work of a few of our interns completed during assignments in West Africa and Central America…

Torrential rains lashed West and Central African countries this rainy season, setting off flooding and causing considerable damage. On the evening of June 26th alone, nearly 200 millimeters of rain fell on the villages of Malem Hoddar and Malem Thierigne in eastern Senegal. The ensuing flash floods killed at least one person, displaced dozens of families and destroyed hundreds of homes and livestock. As usual, the regional Red Cross office in Dakar mobilized its vast network of donors and volunteers to respond to this and other events. But this season, the organization also did something fundamentally different in its operations.

“It’s a revolution,” says Pablo Suarez, Associate Program Director at the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Center. “Not only was this the first time a particular zone in West Africa used a particular forecast, it was the first time in the history of the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement that science-based information about something likely to happen was used to ask for aid,” he says.

A key player in this transformation was an IRI intern and Climate and Society masters student named Arame Tall. In early June, Tall went to work with the Disaster Management Unit of the Red Cross office for West and Central Africa (IFRC-WCAZ), based in Dakar, to find ways to incorporate forecasts and other climate information into Red Cross decision making.

Halfway across the globe, Tall’s classmates, Sarah Abdelrahim and Lisette Braman, were on a similar mission in Panama, working with forecasters at the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC).

The internships were the latest example of the ongoing, expanding partnership between the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the IRI.

Complete story on the IRI features page.

Photo: Courtesy IFRC