Transcript Climate variability and climate change

Climate variability
and climate change
Module B1, Session 7
SADC Course in Statistics
Learning Objectives
• Explain why climate issues are included
• in this statistics course
• Relate climate change and climate variability
• to risk assessment and productivity in agriculture
• Understand the data requirements
• for a climate change problem concerning planting dates
• Interpret a graph of planting dates
• to begin to assess the evidence for climate change
• Explain their role, if any,
• in the climate debate
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Contents
1. Session outline
2. The case for including climatic examples
• video, transcript and discussion
3. Climate variability and agriculture
• video, transcript and discussion
4. Class discussion reviewing the interviews
5. Group work
• DFID fact sheet on the importance of climate issues
• Zambia case study
• What role can you play
6. Review
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Activity 2 – why include climatic examples?
• Climate variability affects many sectors
• of the National Statistical system
• including health and agriculture
• Climatic “shocks” are a major issue
• in preventing families climbing out of poverty
• Climate change is a global issue
• which could hit Africa hard
• And studying variability
• is what statistics is all about!
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Activity 3: Climate and rainfed agriculture
• Africa depends on rainfed agriculture
• and will continue to do so
• It is a risky business
• and farmers are risk averse
• partly because they don’t know the risks
• But they could
• If the climatic data were analysed appropriately
• Then they could take advantage
• of the average and good years
• better than they are able to do now
• The video tells the story!
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Activity 4: Class discussion (10 min)
• What are the key points to take away from
these interviews?
• What do these messages mean for
development projects and studies?
• Do you agree with them?
• What can studies into climate, past and
present, inform us on?
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Activity 5: Group work
• Divide into groups of 4
• Within your group divide into pairs
• Each pair looks at one of the two remaining resources
1. International - DFID factsheet
2. Local - Zambia study on climate change
• Report on your study to the others in your
group
• picking out 4 or 5 key points
• as part of your explanation
• Then in the group
• discuss your views on climate variability and change
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Responding to the risks of climate change
• Fact sheet by DFID
• DFID = UK Department for International Development
• Are different approaches
• to poverty eradication necessary?
• Reducing the vulnerability of the poor
• to current climate variability
• is the starting point for adaptation to climate
change
• What are the priorities for Africa?
• see the DFID fact sheet
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Climate change in Southern Zambia
• Farmers are migrating North
• Claiming their farming problems
• are due to climate change
• A local NGO – CFU
• Conservation Farming Unit
• Agrees there are problems of climate
variability
• But is not convinced that climate change
• Has affected these rainfall-related risks
• So they wanted a study of the rainfall data
• to check on the evidence for climate change
• and calculate the risks
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One result from the Zambia study
The daily rainfall data were needed for this analysis
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Explain to your group
• From your case study
• Explain to the others in your group
• Partly by giving 4 or 5 key points
• Then have a general group discussion
• Do you agree with the inclusion
• of climatic examples in this course
• The DFID fact sheet
• says that climate variability and climate change
• is so important
• that new approaches are needed
• What do you think?
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What could climate issues mean for you?
• Is climate variability and climate change
• just for your government
• or for the West
• or for the Met Service
• Or does it affect everyone?
• If so
• and if variability is so important
• which is something statisticians study
• What should you do?
• What could you do
• “You” could be yourself, or your organisation
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The next session continues the climatic
theme by looking at solar energy,
particularly solar cooking
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