A delegation from the East African Nation of Djibouti is visiting Yale University to learn more about how climate change will affect the horn of Africa in the coming years.
Most climate models that predict the future of climate change are global in scale. They are useful, but they only display a basic perspective of average conditions over a massive area of land.
Yale's Climate and Energy Institute, or YCEI, has developed a high-resolution climate simulation by combining existing models. "So what we are doing is taking the results from those global climate models, and we're going to force other climate models from the global models," said Yale University Geology and Geophysics professor and YCEI director Mark Pagani.
The result is highly detailed and localized predictions of the future effects of climate change. That detailed information will be incredibly useful for East African countries like Djibouti, where climate conditions impact their gross national product.
"You want to know how those conditions are changing, and how those particular nations are going to be destabilized because of these kind of changes in their economy and internal structure," said Pagani -- things like future droughts and infectious diseases.
Djibouti's minister of higher education, along with senior Djiboutian scientists, are meeting with experts from the YCEI to launch several initiatives, including the Yale-Djibouti climate project, which will use the climate model to better predict future conditions for Eastern Africa.