Downscaling the Seasonal Climate Prediction for Adamawa state Consultancy

Background/Context on Downscaling the SCP and some of the Processes involved

The downscaling of the Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP) is an activity that is normally carried out by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency NiMet through its dedicated and trusted consultant who must be a professional meteorologist with years of experience (or a team of professional meteorologists managed by the professional consultant).This is because the SCP is a tool used for planning and mitigating the impacts of climatic hazards such as flooding and dryspell on the lives and/or livelihoods; it is therefore a sensitive document. It is a document that could be used to mitigate the impacts of the hazards on the lives and livelihood of IRC’s clients through its range of Anticipatory Action Programs (AAPs). Given the technical terminology or technicalities associated with this activity, there is a need to provide some context which will suffice to justify the need for downscaling the SCP

First and foremost, the Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP) generated by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), one of IRC’s HYDROMET partners, contains forecast information for climatic parameters such as temperature, rainfall and its derivatives which includes onset, cessation and length of growing season. It also contains forecast information on dryspell. It is usually generated at the beginning of every year in January. Preliminary information from the SCP seems to suggest that there will be dryspell this year therefore, there is a need to urgently put in motion machinery and processes to mitigate its impact. The SCP is the basis for planning farming activities and other water-driven sector activity, generally for each of the states in Nigeria. Thus, the information mostly applies at the state level. Thus, providing information at the local government level (e.g. Faran-Farang or Numan) or IRC’s specific area of interest necessitates the need to downscale the SCP, which is more like a “mini version” of the SCP.There are a number of locations where IRC’s clients reside in Adamawa state, and IRC would therefore need location-specific information to carry out an effective Anticipatory Action in 2025.

Scope of work

Scope of Work Involved in Downscaling the SCP

The contractor will be downscaling the Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP). When downscaled, the SCP could be used to guide the implementation of mitigation measures to dryspell (or flood), which will include providing farmers with the right seed variety among others. Incidentally, IRC has recently established collaboration with the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) in Nigeria (who could provide guidance in this regard)

Some of the activities involved downscaling the SCP, same which will be expected of the contractor include:

a.Acquiring part of the necessary input data for developing the model from Both Dynamical and Statistical ensemble model-based probabilistic forecast from the Institute of Research for Climate and Society (IRI), USA, and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

b.Archiving historical data from NiMet database spanning a time period of at least thirty years (30 years); some of which will include Maximum Temperature, Minimum Temperature, Solar Radiation, Evapotranspiration among others. This set of data is also part the input data required for the simulation.

c.Using this historical data to develop a Numerical-based model to generate forecast information. This becomes a soft copy of the downscaled forecast information.

d. Interpreting and presenting the information in maps and numerical forms. Additionally, the information needs be translated into Hausa language for IRC’s clients.

e.Generating Crop Calendar for Adamawa state, which will be used to plan farming activities, a major derivative from the downscaling exercise

Crop – Weather Calendar is a tool that provides timely information about seeds to promote local crop production. It contains information on best planting dates based on the SCP and harvesting periods of locally adapted crop varieties in specific agro-ecological zones. It also provides information such as sowing rates of seed, stages of crop development and planting

material in the region or state

Deliverables:

The deliverables expected from the contractor include:

Production of Soft copy of the downscaled document translated in English and Hausa Languages (with maps and, in numerical formats).

Production of Crop Calendar for Local Government Areas of Adamawa state, which will be used to plan farming activities, this a major derivative from the downscaling exercise