Methodology and Data Sets
<p>2010 IFC_Methodologies for Assessing Business Climate Risk</p>
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Scenarios of future
climate change
Scenarios of changes in future climatic conditions were sourced mainly from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Climate Change Country Profiles (McSweeney, New, and Lizcano 2008). These profiles were developed to address the climate change information gap in developing countries. They provide multi-model projections of changes in future climatic conditions from 15 of the most up-to-date general circulation models (GCMs), as used in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, for a range of different emissions scenarios (namely A2, A1B, and B1).2
The country profiles provide analyses of changes in the following climatic parameters, year by year, out to 2100, on an annual and seasonal basis:
• Mean temperature
• Mean precipitation
• Indices of extreme daily temperatures (from the 2060s onward), including the frequency of “hot” and “cold” days and nights
• Indices of extreme daily precipitation (from the 2060s onward), including the proportion of total rainfall falling in “heavy” events, maximum 1-day rainfall amounts, and maximum 5-day rainfall amounts.</p>
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Where no site-specific data were available, information from the scientific or engineering literature was utilized instead. For example, Figure 4 shows an analysis of the effects of temperature change on wheat yields for different latitudes, from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. The orange trend lines and data points on each graph show the impacts if no adaptation actions are taken in response to temperature changes, while the green lines and points show the impacts if adaptation does occur.</p>
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Finally, for risk areas where no literature on climate change impacts could be found, such as the industrial facilities at Packages and GOPDC, the study teams were able to work effectively with the facility managers and engineers to develop a good understanding of the risks to the companies’ performance.</p>
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Explaining the Graphic: The grids in the figure divide the area of Nepal by longitude (x-axis) and latitude (y-axis). Khimti 1 is located in the grid box highlighted in blue in the top figure. In each grid box, the central value (large number) shows the median of the 15 climate models, and the values in the upper and lower corners are the maximum and minimum model values. According to this analysis, the median change in monthly average precipitation projected for Khimti 1 is –7 percent (low to high range of –37 to +11 percent) for the dry season and +2 percent (low to high range of –23 to +43 percent) for the wet season.</p>