PREDICTING EXTREME EVENTS ASSOCIATED WITH CLIMATE VARIABILITY/CHANGE HAVING IMPLICATIONS FOR REGIONAL STABILITY

The proposed research takes the first steps in addressing the challenge of providing early warnings for extreme events associated with climate variability and change to support identification of potential security threats and crises. The proposed methodologies will also support adaptive management of water, energy and agricultural practices and other adaptation strategies. We propose to lay the foundation for a web-based regional risk information and early warning system based on a probabilistic multi-model ensemble forecasting scheme. The Phase I research will establish a framework for assessing regional predictability and prediction capability of triggering weather/climate events on seasonal to decadal timescales, identify opportunities for effective prediction of climate related stability and security risks, particularly as it relates to energy, water and agriculture, and provide a conceptualized web-based user tool to turn climate based security risk identification into a prediction and advance response oriented decision support system. The resulting research will provide all the necessary inputs to turn the conceptual forecast system into a functioning, state-of-the-art climate-risk decision support system geared towards identifying and responding to climate driven security threats, which can be realized via a Phase II extension.