CLIMAFRICA – Climate change predictions in Sub-Saharan Africa: impacts and adaptations

Africa is a continent under a heavy pressure from climate stresses and due to its current low adaptation capacity, it is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Therefore stakeholders need the appropriate and most up-to-date tools to better understand and predict climate change, assess its impact on African ecosystems and population, and evaluate and undertake the correct adaptation strategies. In this respect there is an urgent need to i) develop improved climate predictions on seasonal to decadal climatic scales in SSA, ii) evaluate climate change impacts on water and agriculture, iii) improve early warning systems from short to medium-long term predictions and iv) propose new and feasible adaptation strategies, especially fitted for the weakest communities.

CMCC plays a key role in the project. It is the project coordinator and leads four work packages (WP) : WP2 on the improving climate predictions in Sub-Saharian Africa on seasonal to decadal climatic scales; WP5 on the socio-economic implications of climate change impacts on agriculture and water resources and the cost-effectiveness of potential adaptation measures; WP7 on the project management; and WP8 on the dissemination activities.

• WP1 - Effects of past climate variability on ecosystem productivity and water cycle
• WP2 - Feedbacks between climate variability/ changes and the land surface. Improving modelling seasonal to decadal climate predictions
• WP3 - Analysis of climate impacts on key ecosystem services (water, agriculture)
• WP4 - Medium-term warning system, vulnerability, adaptation
• WP5 - Socio-economic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation measures in SSA
• WP6 - Regional case studies in Africa
• WP7- Project Management
• WP8 - Dissemination and exploitation of project results