The State of the Jamaican Climate 2015 Prepared by Climate Studies Group Mona University of the West Indies For Planning Institute of Jamaica 16 Oxford Road, Kingston 5 October 2017 The State of the Jamaican Climate 2015 The State of the Jamaican Climate 2015 | c Full Report This publication is to be cited as follows: Climate Studies Group, Mona (CSGM), 2017: State of the Jamaican Climate 2015: Information for Resilience Building (Full Report). Produced for the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Kingston Jamaica. Report Authors: Michael. A. Taylor Christina A. Douglas Tannecia S. Stephenson Alrick A. Brown Jhordanne J. Jones Candice S. Charlton Kimberly A. Stephenson Alton Daley Pietra Brown Deron Maitland Jayaka D. Campbell Dale Rankine Rochelle N. Walters Arpita Mandal Roxann Stennett-Brown This publication or parts of it may be reproduced for educational or non-profit purposes without special permission, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. (See citation above). The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the PIOJ. Acknowledgements » The Meteorological Service of Jamaica » Mona GeoInformatics (MGI) » The Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) National Library Of Jamaica Cataloguing-In-Publication Data Climate Studies Group Mona The state of the Jamaican climate 2015: Information for resilience building / prepared by the Climate Studies Group Mona for the Planning Institute of Jamaica. p. : ill., maps; cm Bibliography : p. ISBN 978-976-8103-69-7 (pbk) ISBN 978-976-8103-70-3 (cd) 1. Climatology 2. Jamaica – Climate research 3. Climatic changes – Jamaica – Research 4. Climatic changes – Jamaica – Risk assessment 5. Climatic changes – Jamaica – Risk management I. Planning Institute of Jamaica II. Title 551.6 dc 23 Published under the ICDIMP funded by: d | Information for Resilience Building Table of Contents List of Figures iv List of Tables vii List of Abbreviations xi Executive Overview xiv 1. RATIONALE & BACKGROUND 1 1.1. Jamaica 1 1.2. Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience 2 1.3. About this Document 3 2. DATA AND METHODOLOGIES 5 2.1. Approach 5 2.2. Data Sources 6 2.3. Obtaining Future Projections from Models 7 2.3.1. Emission Scenarios 7 2.3.2. GCMs and RCMs 10 2.3.3. SDSM 14 2.3.4. SimCLIM 15 2.3.5. Presenting the Data 15 3. CLIMATOLOGY 17 3.1. Introduction 17 3.2. Temperature 17 3.3. Rainfall 20 3.4. Hurricanes 28 3.5. Other Variables 29 3.5.1. Wind 29 3.5.2. Significant Wave Height 31 3.5.3. Solar Radiation 32 3.5.4. Relative Humidity, Sunshine Hours, and Evaporation 33 4. OBSERVED VARIABILITY, TRENDS, AND EXTREMES 35 4.1. Temperatures 35 4.2. Rainfall 38 4.3. Hurricanes 45 4.4. Droughts and Floods 48 4.5. Sea Levels 50 5. CLIMATE SCENARIOS AND PROJECTIONS 54 5.1. Introduction 54 5.2. Temperature 54 5.2.1. GCMs 56 The State of the Jamaican Climate 2015 | i 5.2.2. RCMs 59 5.2.3. Statistical Downscaling 67 5.3. Rainfall 69 5.3.1. GCMs 71 5.3.2. RCMs 73 5.3.3. Rainfall Extremes 78 5.4. Sea Levels 79 5.4.1. Sea Level Extremes 82 5.5. Hurricanes 84 6. SECTOR IMPACTS 88 6.1. Introduction 88 6.1.1. Table Summaries 88 6.2. Climate Impacts at a Glance 92 7. CLIMATE VULNERABILITY PROFILES 118 7.1. Introduction 118 7.2. Bluefields 118 7.3. Negril 121 7.4. Rio Minho 125 7.5. Ocho Rios 129 7.6. Black River 133 7.7. Montego Bay 137 7.8. Portmore 141 8. CLIMATE RESOURCES 148 8.1. Introduction 148 8.1.1. Climate Analysis Resources 149 8.1.2. Decision-Making within the Climate Context 151 8.2. Sector-Specific Climate Tools, Software and Resources 152 8.2.1. Climate Products and Services 152 8.2.2. Climate Tools, Software, Sensors and Models 154 8.3. Climate Literature (since 2012) 159 8.3.2. Modelling and the Future Climate 160 8.3.3. Impacts of Climate Change 161 9. REFERENCES 160 9.1. Chapter 1: Rationale and Background 164 9.2. Chapter 2: Data and Methodologies 164 9.3. Chapter 3: Climatology 166 9.4. Chapter 4: Observed Variability, Trends, and Extremes 166 9.5. Chapter 5: Climate Scenarios and Projections 167 9.6. Chapter 6: Climate Change and Sector Impacts 167 9.7. Chapter 7: Climate Profiles of Key Geographic Areas 170 10. WORKSHOP REPORT AND STAKEHOLDER FEEDBACK 173 ii | Information for Resilience Building 10.1. Introductions and Overview of the Project 174 10.2. Stakeholders/Participants in Attendance 176 10.3. Overview of the Document 176 10.4. Workshop Objectives 177 10.5. Session 1: See Dis Pattern 177 10.6. Session 2: Watch Dis Trend 178 10.7. Session 3: Pree Dis Change 181 10.8. Appendix: Interactive Exercises 182 10.8.1. Interactive Exercise 1: Are You Climate Smart? Climate Quiz 182 10.8.2. Interactive Exercise 3: Tan Ya Ville 183 10.8.3. Participant Responses to Interactive Exercise 3 185 The State of the Jamaican Climate 2015 | iii List of Figures FIGURE 1: Map of Jamaica. Inset shows Jamaica’s location within in the Caribbean. 1 FIGURE 2: Two families of scenarios commonly used for future climate projections: the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES, left) and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP, right). The SRES scenarios are named by family (A1, A2, B1, and B2), where each family is designed around a set of consistent assumptions: for example, a world that is more integrated or more divided. The RCP scenarios are simply numbered according to the change in radiative forcing (from +2.6 to +8.5 watts per square metre) that results by 2100. This figure compares SRES and RCP annual carbon emissions (top), carbon dioxide equivalent levels in the atmosphere (bottom). Figure source: Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment. 9 FIGURE 3: PRECIS 25-km grid box representation over the island of Jamaica. 12 FIGURE 4: RegCM4.3.5 20-km grid box representation over the island of Jamaica. 13 FIGURE 5: Temperature climatologies of nine meteorological sites across Jamaica. Maximum temperatures are shown in orange, mean temperatures in blue and minimum temperatures in grey. Data averaged over varying periods for each station. Source: Meteorological Service of Jamaica. 20 FIGURE 6: Rainfall climatology in mm for Jamaica as determined from the All-Jamaica rainfall index of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica. Climatologies are shown for four averaging periods: 1891-2009; 1920-1949; 1950-1979; and 1980-2009. Bars indicate standard deviations. Source: National Meteorological Service of Jamaica. 21 FIGURE 7: Distribution of mean annual rainfall for Jamaica (in millimetres). Averaging period is 1971-2000. Source: Meteorological Service of Jamaica. 24 FIGURE 8: Meteorological stations that cluster together with respect to rainfall variability and the four rainfall zones they fall in. Bold lines show the rough delineation of the four zones which are called the Interior zone or Zone 1 (dark blue), the East zone or Zone 2 (cyan), the West zone or Zone 3(yellow), and the Coastal zone or Zone 4 (red). Source: Meteorological Service of Jamaica. 25 FIGURE 9: Climatologies of the four rainfall zones for the years 1981-2010. Colours are as follows: Interior (zone 1) – green; East (zone 2) – cyan; West (zone 3) – red; Coasts (zone 4) - navy blue and the All- Island Index (purple). The All island index is averaged over the years 1891-2009 (purple dotted line). Source: National Meteorological Service of Jamaica. 26 FIGURE 10: Data Hurricane frequency for the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season. Source: NOAA. 28 FIGURE 11: Wind speed climatology of Jamaica based on data collected at a) the Norman Manley International Airport and b) the Donald Sangster International Airport on an hourly basis for January 1998 to December 2016. 29 FIGURE 12: Variation of wind speeds across Jamaica. Source: Mona GeoInformatics Institute. 30 FIGURE 13: Climatology of Jamaica’s significant wave height, wind speed, period, and wave direction for two weather stations – 42058 (yellow) and 42057 (blue). Source: NOAA NDBC. 31 FIGURE 14: Solar Radiation Map: Global Horizontal Irradiation Map of Jamaica. Source: SolarGIS. 33 FIGURE 15: Annual maximum, minimum and mean temperatures for Jamaica 1950-2015. The linear trend lines are inserted. Source: CRU TS3.24. 35 FIGURE 16: (a) Average July-October temperature anomalies over the Caribbean from the late 1800s with trend line imposed. Box Inset: Percentage of variance explained by trend line, decadal variations > 10 years, interannual (year-to-year) variations. (b) Percentage variance in July-October temperature anomalies (from late 1800s) accounted for by the ‘global warming’ trend line for grid boxes over the Caribbean. Source: Climate Research Unit (CRU). Acknowledgements: IRI Map Room. 36 iv | Information for Resilience Building FIGURE 17: Trends in selected historical temperature extremes for stations located at Donald Sangster International Airport, Discovery Bay, Worthy Park, Bodles, Tulloch, Norman Manley International Airport, and Duckenfield. Figure shows (a) daily temperature range (DTR) (b) growing season length (GSL) (c) nights warmer than 20oC (TR20) (d) coolest minimum temperatures (TNn) (e) warmest maximum temperatures (TXx). Direction of the arrow indicates positive (upward) or negative (downward) trend. The size of arrow indicates the magnitude relative to the largest trend in each panel. 37 FIGURE 18: Anomaly time series (blue) of All Jamaica rainfall index. Dark blue and red lines show respectively the smoothed index using running means of 13 and 53 months respectively to highlight interannual and decadal variability. Anomalies are with respect to a climatology calculated using the entire period. Units are mm.