The international Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) are in collaboration with the Met Office, UK’s national meteorological agency, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)/COordinated Regional Climate Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX), the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI); the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), organizing a three-day training for relevant professionals in Bangladesh on spatial and temporal analysis of climate change using CORDEX regional climate models over South Asia. Supported by the WCRP/CORDEX, this training will introduce climate change science and focus on bias calculation and selection of few representative models for a defined area of interest.

Objectives

The training aims to build knowledge and skills for analysing climate change projections using CORDEX regional climate model simulations for professionals in Bangladesh.

Expected outcomes

The training will help participants better understand climate model projections using 17 regional climate models, selecting representative models which best replicate historical climate cycles, and assessing spatial and temporal variability of present and future climate change over a defined area of interest.

In addition to gaining an overall understanding of climate modelling and downscaling, the participants will be able to:

• Prepare CORDEX datasets in areas of interest and compare them with reference datasets
• Visualize spatial and temporal variation in climate change projections
• Interpret uncertainty in model results

Participation

In its current iteration, this training is being offered to professionals from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), and relevant universities in Bangladesh.

Resource persons

ICIMOD: Santosh Nepal, Saurav Pradhananga, Kabi Raj Khatiwada, Mandira Singh Shrestha

CORDEX: Iréne Lake

Centre for Climate Change Research, IITM – Pune: J Sanjay

Background

In October 2020, ICIMOD, Met Office, WCRP/CORDEX, SMHI, and IITM – Pune organized a training on Regional climate change projections: Climate change analysis using CORDEX regional climate models over South Asia for professionals from national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHS) in ARRCC focal countries— Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan under our Climate Services Initiative. Thereafter, a country-focused training for the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology and Tribhuvan University was held in Nepal in June 2021.

The December 2021 edition will focus on using CORDEX regional climate models for spatial and temporal analysis of climate change over South Asia for professionals from Bangladesh. The training will delve into how R-based tools can be used to analyse and visualize climate change projections spatially at different time scales.