The Horn of Africa, like many other parts of the tropics, are prone to extreme climate events such as droughts and floods. These extreme events have severe negative impacts on key socio-economic sectors of all the countries in the sub-region.
In an effort to minimise the negative impacts of extreme climate events and take advantage of the good years, 24 countries in the eastern and southern African sub-region under the auspices of WMO and UNDP established a regional Drought Monitoring Centre (DMC) in Nairobi and a sub-centre in Harare in 1989.
At the end of the UNDP funded Project in 1998 and due to the increased demand for climate information and prediction services, the Nairobi and Harare components now operate independently and are referred to as the Drought Monitoring Centre, Nairobi (DMCN) and the Drought Monitoring Centre, Harare (DMCH). DMCN caters for countries in IGAD and other countries in the Horn of Africa region, while DMCH is responsible for countries in southern Africa.
The 10th Summit of the IGAD Heads of State and Governments that was held in Kampala, Uganda in October 2003 ratified the decision of the 8th Summit that was held in Khartoum, Sudan in November 2000 to absorb DMCN as an autonomous specialized Institution of IGAD. The science and implementation plans for DMCN was completed in 2003 through USAID/REDSO funding The 10th Summit of the IGAD Heads of State and that was executed under the auspices of FEWS NET. The strategic plan recommended the change of name of DMCN to IGAD CLIMATE PREDICTION AND APPLICATIONS CENTRE (ICPAC) in order to reflect better all its new mandates, mission and objectives within the IGAD system.
Three parallel objectives, which, taken together capture ICPAC’s capacity to perform sound scientific work and apply the results through collaboration with an expanding and educated base of users.
I. To improve the technical capacity of producers and users of climatic information, in order to enhance the input to and use of climate monitoring and forecasting products;
II To develop an improved, proactive, timely, broad-based system of information and product dissemination and feedback, at both sub-regional and national scales through national partners;
II. To expand the knowledge base within the sub-region in order to facilitate informed decision making, through a clearer understanding of climatic and climate-related processes, enhanced research and development, and a well managed reference archive of data and information products.
Mission of ICPAC
“Fostering sub-regional and national capacity for climate information, prediction products and services, early warning, and related applications for sustainable development in the IGAD Sub-Region”
Goals of ICPAC
The major goals of ICPAC include “Improved and enhanced sub-regional and national capacities for the use of climate knowledge towards providing Climate Information, Prediction Products and Services, Early Warning, and related applications, as a contribution to Sustainable Development in the IGAD Sub-Region”
Core Programmes
Computer Services and Data Management
• Data Management and Processing
• Computer Services
• Computer Applications
Climate Diagnostics, Prediction and Climatology
• Climate Monitoring, Information and Products
• Climate diagnostics and statistical prediction
• Dynamical climate Modeling and Prediction
Climate Applications
• Remote Sensing and GIS
• Hydrology, water resources
• Agriculture, Livestock and Food Security
• Disaster management
• Health
• Energy, Industry, Construction and Communications
• Urban climate and air pollution
• Oceanography
• Climate change and Desertification
Documentation, Research and Development
• Applied Research and Development
• Capacity Building
• Documentation and Library
End-User Liaison
• Outreach, User relations and feedback
• Gender and Youth
Operational activities
• Development and archiving of regional and national quality controlled databanks.
• Calibration of satellite derived climate records.
• Data processing including development of basic climatological statistics.
• Timely acquisition of near real time climate and remotely sensed data.
• Monitoring space-time evolutions of weather and climate extremes over the region.
• Generation of Climate Prediction and Early warning products.
• Delineation of risk zones of the extreme climate events.
• Networking with the NMHSs and regional and international centres for data and information exchange.
• Timely dissemination of early warning products.
• Public awareness and education of sectoral users of meteorological products.
• Development of sector specific climate information and prediction products.
• Organisation of Climate Outlook Forums
• Interactions with users through regional and national users workshops and pilot application projects, etc.
• Climate change monitoring, detection and attribution.
• Assessment of the impacts and vulnerability associated with climate extremes.
• Research in climate and related fields.
Monitoring of past climate:
The recent past climate over the Horn of Africa is monitored on a dekadal (ten day), monthly and seasonal time scales in order to detect the evolution of any significant anomalies that could impact negatively on the socio – economic activities of the region. These are provided through;
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Dekadal, monthly and seasonal summaries of rainfall and drought severity.
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Monthly temperature anomalies.
Current State of Climate
The current state of climate is monitored and assessed using climate diagnostics and modelling techniques. These are derived from information on the state of the Sea Surface temperature anomalies over all the major ocean basins, surface and upper air anomalies of pressure, winds and other climate parameters.
Prediction products
These are derived from statistical models run at the centre and dynamical model outputs from advanced centres on a dekadal, monthly and seasonal time scales. The Centre has recently acquired a super computer to enhance its dynamical modelling capability and is in the process of calibrating a regional spectral climate model for the Horn of Africa that will be implemented in the near future. The prediction products are provided through outlooks for a dekad, month and season. Consensus pre-season climate outlook fora which are also organised in conjunction with the major climate centres world-wide in order to derive a single consensus forecast for the region.
Impacts
An assessment of the vulnerability together with the current and potential socio-economic conditions and impacts (both negative and positive) associated with the observed and projected climate anomalies is also made on a dekadal, monthly and seasonal time scales.
These products are disseminated to all National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of the participating countries to serve as early warning information to a variety of sectoral users of meteorological information and products including policy makers, planners, health, energy, agricultural and water resource sectors, farmers as well as research institutions among others.
Major Achievements
• Creation of a climate data bank that is constantly updated.
• Capacity building in data processing, climate monitoring & modelling, and prediction.
• Upgrading of ICPAC computing facilities Improved regional climate modelling and prediction capacity.
• Uninterrupted and timely production and dissemination of early warning information.
• Enhanced collaboration between NMHSs of the participating countries especially in the area of data exchange.
• Collaboration between ICPAC, NMHSs and advanced regional diagnostics Centres has been enhanced especially with regard to climate modeling and prediction capabilities.
• Climate capacity building workshops, Capacity building users’ workshops and climate outlook forums have been successfully held.
• Enhanced capacity of NMHSs in statistical modelling for diagnostic analysis and prediction.
• Enhanced computing capacity of the NMHSs.
• Close collaboration between climate scientists and users of climate information has been fostered.
• Pilot application projects have been initiated with some sectoral users
