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The State of the Caribbean Climate Report
Abstract and Figures
This State of the Caribbean Climate (SOCC) Report was prepared to strengthen the strategic planning and decision making processes that will be required to accelerate resilience-building efforts in the Caribbean, specifically within the 19 Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). By providing significant climate data, information, analysis and references, distributed across 10 chapters, the SOCC Report is expected to become the premise for actionable recommendations that will support climate proofing at national and regional levels.
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... The Caribbean and surrounding region continues to reflect a warming trend since those last reported by Glenn et al. [14] and more recently by The Climate Studies Group of UW-Mona [51]. The LRS, the season when SSTs are warmest for this region, is warming at a faster rate than other seasons. ...
... This is demonstrated at the local scale by Mote et al. [52], who report the link between anomalously low GDI values and reduced ERS rainfall during a 2015 drought event in Puerto Rico. Additionally, the Climate Studies Group Mona [51] report increases in the number of consecutive dry days between rainfall events, the amount of rainfall that occurs during a rainfall event, monthly maximum 1-day rainfall amount, and monthly maximum consecutive 5-day rainfall amounts for the region on average. Although the regional trends in CBI (heat and moisture) show an increase, the MWI and II are also increasing in magnitude (they are becoming more negative). ...
Warming sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) have implications for the climate-sensitive Caribbean region, including potential impacts on precipitation. SSTs have been shown to influence deep convection and rainfall, thus understanding the impacts of warming SSTs is important for predicting regional hydrometeorological conditions. This study investigates the long-term annual and seasonal trends in convection using the Galvez-Davison Index (GDI) for tropical convection from 1982–2020. The GDI is used to describe the type and potential for precipitation events characterized by sub-indices that represent heat and moisture availability, cool/warm mid-levels at 500 hPa, and subsidence inversion, which drive the regional Late, Early, and Dry Rainfall Seasons, respectively. Results show that regional SSTs are warming annually and per season, while regionally averaged GDI values are decreasing annually and for the Dry Season. Spatial analyses show the GDI demonstrates higher, statistically significant correlations with precipitation across the region than with sea-surface temperatures, annually and per season. Moreover, the GDI climatology results show that regional convection exhibits a bimodal pattern resembling the characteristic bimodal precipitation pattern experienced in many parts of the Caribbean and surrounding region. However, the drivers of these conditions need further investigation as SSTs continue to rise while the region experiences a drying trend.
... This situation in SIDS can also be explained by lack of sufficient human resources and operational capacity, a wellknown issue in small developing countries (Lucas et al., 2017). Another severe problem is the lack of dedicated financial resources (Taylor et al., 2020), often recurring in COP meetings and well voiced by the AOSIS, which repeatedly highlights the need to increase donor adaptation finance in SIDS, also in the light of the generally high debt ratio experienced by SIDS, unable to spend sufficient financial resources on adaptation measures (AOSIS, 2021). International climate finance has a fundamental role in reducing the vulnerability of SIDS to climate change, however the international funding mechanisms often play against SIDS in terms of access and fairness (Mori et al., 2019;Robinson & Dornan, 2017;Scandurra et al., 2020). ...
Tourism resembles an indispensable source for financing national development and securing local livelihoods in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) with their sun-sea-sand tourism. Related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions counteract sectoral development as climate impacts have begun to severely reduce the attractiveness of destinations. This is valid especially for disaster-prone SIDS where slow and rapid onsetting phenomena and severe, frequent weather events are already experienced, increasingly putting tourist assets, infrastructure, local livelihoods and unique biodiversity under pressure. Against this background, this review synthesizes the recent climate change and tourism literature relating to main SIDS regions, highlighting what is at risk. The authors provide latest evidence of the role tourism plays for these islands and elaborate the peculiar climate risks, impacts and consequences for tourism development. The current state of adaptation is explored and research priorities in SIDS regions are highlighted. Whereas SIDS show high mitigation ambition, the significance of CO2 emissions along the value chain and especially related to the transport to SIDS destinations remains a problem that developed nations must address in their national emission reduction plans. Further research at the interface of climate change and tourism is needed, contributing to the decarbonisation of tourism and successful adaptation in SIDS.
Climate change is happening, and the necessity of sustainable development has become one of the critical current centuries' concerns. Buildings consume more than 40% of energy consumption worldwide, and producing one-third of greenhouse gas emissions has a severe impact on global warming. Iran stands at the first position in the middle east and the seventh position worldwide in greenhouse gas emissions. However, the united nations still believe for reducing these environmental impacts, we should move towards feasible and cost-effective strategies in host spots, like buildings. Because the building industry is responsible for 24% of Iranian carbon dioxide emissions and the importance of energy consumption and industrial construction materials, as well as the need for new residential buildings, it seems that this country needs a paradigm shift in material selection and buildings systems. Reviewing the potentials of vernacular architecture in the history of Iranian architecture, it appears that the use of earthen materials and traditional techniques could be the subject of further investigations. In this regard, this thesis investigates the performance of traditional techniques compared to conventional building systems with the help of embodied energy parameter. Using the standard methodology of LCA and ISO 14040, this thesis compares the embodied energy of a pilot building and a conventional one. The results show that using traditional construction techniques instead of industrial materials and systems could reduce the embodied energy of buildings up to 43% and its emitted carbon up to 48%. A separated part answers this question: what earthen material has the most minor environmental performance between adobe, break and rammed earth. Using the mentioned methodology, it concludes that adobe has better performance in embodied energy consumption with 32.5% and 19.7% of the one of break and rammed earth, respectively. Based on the results and extracted design strategies, this thesis comes to designing an elementary school. It could be concluded that earthen materials and techniques profoundly reduce buildings' energy consumption and environmental impacts. Also, due to Iran's short buildings life span, embodied energy has a vital role in buildings life cycle energy.
This document defines the vision of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States
(OECS) for its work on climate change adaptation to build resilient societies, whilst
reducing vulnerability. The strategy supports the goals and objectives of full members,
associate members, and observers, outlining the OECS’s unique role in convening and
providing technical support. It also embraces the organisations remit to exert regional
leadership and to promote proven, evidence-based approaches to advance
effective climate adaptation programs and policies.
This Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (CCASAP) supports the OECS’ work on
climate change adaptation within the region for the medium and long term. It is an
adaptable high-level framework that guides the organization’s resources (human,
technical and financial) toward achievable regional outcomes that align with – and
are responsive to – specific country and territory contexts. As such, it can be applied
to all climate risk related policies and associated measures.
Climate services are becoming an important strategy for delivering climate information to users around the world. In many countries, National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) are charged with providing climate services to diverse audiences. Climate services are important to foster adaptation to climate risks and in reducing vulnerability in developing world contexts. However, the production and delivery of user-oriented climate services place new burdens on NMHSs and require new skillsets, partnerships, and infrastructure. In this paper, we assess the capabilities of 22 NMHSs in Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to understand whether and how NMHSs are fit for the purpose of providing climate services. Our assessment is framed around the five core pillars of the World Meteorological Organization's Global Framework for Climate Services. We find that the NMHSs face key capacity gaps in the technical production, translation, transfer, and facilitation of the use of climate information. Some of these gaps have historical roots and relate to the overarching legal, political, and institutional settings in which NMHSs were established and currently operate. Others relate to an increased emphasis on users in ways that contrast with traditional NMHSs’ engagement with stakeholders. These results suggest that investments that support the co-production of climate information while also addressing prevailing legal, political, and institutional disconnects and human resource constraints can strengthen the provision of climate services in Caribbean SIDS.
Here we describe advances in the Caribbean region to develop climate services for the public health sector. The climate science community can play an important role in addressing public health challenges. Many human diseases and health conditions are sensitive to changes in temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind and other environmental conditions such as
air and water quality. Climate information can thus be used as a sign of risk and to inform disease monitoring and health research.
This paper examines historical and future changes in normalised damages resulting from climate-related natural disasters for the Caribbean. Annualised damages of USD824 million are shown to be non-stationary over the historical period 1964 to 2013. Perturbations of (i) sea surface temperatures (SST) in the tropical North Atlantic (TNA) and (ii) the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation (AMO) appear to be associated with historical damages. Both the TNA and AMO are known modulators of hurricane activity and rainfall amounts in the Caribbean. Indicative future damages are determined using (i) cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of perturbed climate states and (ii) an artificial neural network (ANN) model of damages using projected TNA values and the state of the AMO derived from an ensemble of five coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models (GCMs) run under the RCP 4.5 scenario. Estimates of future damages are determined when global mean surface temperatures (GMST) reach and exceed 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels. Annual normalised damages may potentially increase to at least USD1395 million or close to double for 1.5 °C. At 2 °C, higher damages may occur; however, large uncertainty across all GCMs prohibits the identification of significant difference between 1.5 and 2 °C. Significant differences in damages do, however, exist for at least two of the GCMs for the two climate states. The robustness of the results is discussed in light of a number of issues, including limitations associated with the data.
The Caribbean islands are expected to see more frequent and severe droughts from reduced precipitation and increased evaporative demand due to anthropogenic climate change. Between 2013 and 2016, the Caribbean experienced a widespread drought due in part to El Niño in 2015–2016, but it is unknown whether its severity was exacerbated by anthropogenic warming. This work examines the role of recent warming on this drought, using a recently developed high-resolution self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index data set. The resulting analysis suggest that anthropogenic warming accounted for ~15–17% of the drought's severity and ~7% of its spatial extent. These findings strongly suggest that climate model projected anthropogenic drying in the Caribbean is already underway, with major implications for the more than 43 million people currently living in this region.
Background
Over the last 5 years (2013–2017), the Caribbean region has faced an unprecedented crisis of co-occurring epidemics of febrile illness due to arboviruses transmitted by the Aedes sp. mosquito (dengue, chikungunya, and Zika). Since 2013, the Caribbean island of Barbados has experienced 3 dengue outbreaks, 1 chikungunya outbreak, and 1 Zika fever outbreak. Prior studies have demonstrated that climate variability influences arbovirus transmission and vector population dynamics in the region, indicating the potential to develop public health interventions using climate information. The aim of this study is to quantify the nonlinear and delayed effects of climate indicators, such as drought and extreme rainfall, on dengue risk in Barbados from 1999 to 2016.
Methods and findings
Distributed lag nonlinear models (DLNMs) coupled with a hierarchal mixed-model framework were used to understand the exposure–lag–response association between dengue relative risk and key climate indicators, including the standardised precipitation index (SPI) and minimum temperature (Tmin). The model parameters were estimated in a Bayesian framework to produce probabilistic predictions of exceeding an island-specific outbreak threshold. The ability of the model to successfully detect outbreaks was assessed and compared to a baseline model, representative of standard dengue surveillance practice. Drought conditions were found to positively influence dengue relative risk at long lead times of up to 5 months, while excess rainfall increased the risk at shorter lead times between 1 and 2 months. The SPI averaged over a 6-month period (SPI-6), designed to monitor drought and extreme rainfall, better explained variations in dengue risk than monthly precipitation data measured in millimetres. Tmin was found to be a better predictor than mean and maximum temperature. Furthermore, including bidimensional exposure–lag–response functions of these indicators—rather than linear effects for individual lags—more appropriately described the climate–disease associations than traditional modelling approaches. In prediction mode, the model was successfully able to distinguish outbreaks from nonoutbreaks for most years, with an overall proportion of correct predictions (hits and correct rejections) of 86% (81%:91%) compared with 64% (58%:71%) for the baseline model. The ability of the model to predict dengue outbreaks in recent years was complicated by the lack of data on the emergence of new arboviruses, including chikungunya and Zika.
Conclusion
We present a modelling approach to infer the risk of dengue outbreaks given the cumulative effect of climate variations in the months leading up to an outbreak. By combining the dengue prediction model with climate indicators, which are routinely monitored and forecasted by the Regional Climate Centre (RCC) at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), probabilistic dengue outlooks could be included in the Caribbean Health-Climatic Bulletin, issued on a quarterly basis to provide climate-smart decision-making guidance for Caribbean health practitioners. This flexible modelling approach could be extended to model the risk of dengue and other arboviruses in the Caribbean region.
Central America is a region susceptible to natural disasters and climate change. We reviewed the literature on the main atmospheric and oceanographic forces and climate modulators affecting Central America, for different spatial and time scales. We also reviewed the reported correlation between climate variability, natural hazards and climate change aspects (in the past and future). In addition, we examined the current state of seasonal prediction systems being applied to the region. At inter-annual scales, El Niño/Southern Oscillation is the main climate modulator; however, other indices such as the Tropical North Atlantic, Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation, have shown a correlation with precipitation anomalies in the region. Current seasonal forecast systems in the region have shown a constant development, including incorporation of different approaches ranging from statistical to dynamical downscaling, improving prediction of variables such as precipitation. Many studies have revealed the need of including-in addition to the climatic information-socioeconomic variables to assess the impact of natural disasters and climate change in the region. These studies highlight the importance of socioeconomic and human life losses associated with the impacts caused by natural hazards for organizations and governments. Rev. Biol. Trop. 66(Suppl. 1): S153-S175. Epub 2018 April 01.
This article describes the evolution of climate services in the Caribbean over the last fifty years, which represents an important contribution to the region's increasing resilience to extreme weather, increasing climate variability, and climate change. In particular, it focuses on recent advances made by the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) in collaboration with its multiple international, regional and national partners, to build the foundation for, and implement its multi-sectoral Early Warning Systems across Climate Timescales (EWISACTs) portfolio that serves the water, disaster risk reduction, agriculture and food security, health, tourism and energy sectors, among others. The region's cumulative historical experience makes it clear that the ability of the Caribbean climate services programme to effectively enhance regional resilience depends on building products and services that not only address critical sectoral needs, but which also offer opportunities to facilitate the structural reforms required for Caribbean economies to transition to a path of sustainable development.