The EAGLE project generates predictions of climatic futures for the Africa Great Lakes region using two different approaches:
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Atmospheric modeling of weather conditions for the recent past, mid-century and end-of-century through the Weather and Research Model (WRF) forecasting system. We simulated 10 years of weather for each of the three periods above under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario. RCP 8.5 portrays a global future highly disturbed by anthropogenic activities through sustained increases in greenhouse gas emissions through the end of the 21st century. For a discussion on the validity of applying RCP 8.5 in climate predictions, see this link.
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Land surface modeling of future environments, including vegetation, carbon stocks, fire occurrence and crops using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) out to 2100 under contrasting global emissions and socioeconomic scenarios. Our simulations compared futures for the EAGLE region under RCP 2.6 (low emissions) and RCP 7.0 (very high, but not extreme emissions). In addition, human development and population options are explored through the use of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) under more favorable (SSP 1) and less favorable (SSP 3) sustainability pathways.
Our two modeling approaches are in fact linked, since we ran our WRF simulations using a CESM RCP8.5 global simulation to provide the boundary conditions.
The CESM is an advanced environmental prediction system, that integrates the multitude of physical, chemical and biological processes that determine past, present and future climate. Requiring the use of extremely powerful supercomputers, earth systems models generate the most complete information on changes in future climate and its physical impacts on time scales of decades, thus matching typical environmental planning time horizons. Taken collectively, CESM outputs can provide a holistic, internally consistent package of information that can help in understanding and visualizing climate change-related impacts within a broader context of changing human demographic and developmental trends. The model is run with climate forcing prescribed through annual changes in land cover, solar irradiance, greenhouse gas concentrations, natural and anthropogenic aerosol burden, and aerosols (black carbon and dust) and nitrogen deposition.
