Climate Change
The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), a WMO-designated Regional Climate Centre (RCC) for Eastern Africa, proudly introduces the CMIP6 Climate Change Information Visualization Portal, a user-oriented platform providing accessible insights into future climate scenarios to guide evidence-based planning and resilience building across the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA).
This portal bridges global climate science and regional applications by visualizing outputs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), which underpins major international assessments such as the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). It highlights projected changes in precipitation, mean, minimum, and maximum air temperatures for multiple time horizons: 1985–2014 (historical baseline), 2021–2050, and 2071–2100 under various Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs: SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.0, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP5-8.5).
The portal integrates data from 10 CMIP6 models (BCC-CSM2-MR, CanESM5, CMCC-ESM2, EC-Earth3, GFDL-ESM4, INM-CM5-0, IPSL-CM6A-LR, MPI-ESM1-2-HR, and ensemble means). Monthly and seasonal time steps (MAM, JJAS, OND) enable dynamic assessments of climate variability and change. Statistical analyses include mean changes relative to 1985–2014 and standard deviations to represent uncertainty.
ICPAC applies advanced interpolation techniques to ensure regional-scale consistency across datasets, offering users multi-model means, anomaly plots, and spatial maps to explore climate evolution across the GHA. Bias-adjusted and calibration features will be added in future versions to enhance accuracy and local applicability.
By operationalizing CMIP6 projections for Eastern Africa, this initiative is accessible through Data and Tools in the ICPAC main web portal (Home - ICPAC) and IGAD Regional Climate Centre (RCC) (Regional Climate Center - ICPAC), empowering policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to translate climate science into actionable strategies for climate-resilient development and long-term adaptation planning in the region.