Climate Change and Sustainable Agricultural Intensification

Mark New

Approaches to Intensification

• Grow crops in new areas• Improve productivity in existing areas– Multiple cropping– Improved or different crop varieties– Enhanced inputs – irrigation, fertiliser, etc.– Better farm management– Economic and institutional incentives

• Climate change may limit or enable intensification

Climate Change Uncertainty

Uncertainty Increases as Function of…

• Spatial scale– Global -> regional -> local

• Temporal scale– Decadal -> annual -> monthly -> daily– Means -> variance -> extreme events

• Process complexity– Temperature -> humidity -> precipitation– Tropics -> mid-latitudes -> sub-tropics

IGP Monsoon Rainfall – GCM Skill

IGP Monsoon Rainfall – GCM Projections

300km Global Model

25km Regional Model

50km Regional Model

Observed 10km

Does Downscaling “Add Value”?

Does Downscaling “Add Value”?10 RCMs, driven by the same GCM

Climate Uncertainty is Here to Stay

• In the near term– Internal variability– Model uncertainty

• Longer term– Scenario / forcing uncertainty– Model uncertainty

• Downscaling– Improved understanding of uncertainty?

So What are the Options?Climate Compatible Intensification

• Strategies that are robust across climate uncertainties– Portfolios of crop varieties or generalist crops– Flexibility in options to avoid maladaptation– Enhance resilience / productivity to current climate

stresses– Risk management – learning from seasonal

forecasting• Informed by appropriate analysis of climate

model data

Better Analysis of Climate Model Data

• Model evaluation and filtering with agriculturally relevant indices

Model Evaluation & Filtering

Analysis of New Climate Model Data

• New Centennial GCM Projections• Multi GCM-RCM ensembles – CORDEX• New decadal forecasts