Communications of the ACM
Mapping the Future of Climate Change in Africa
Children in the foothills of Drakensberg mountains in South Africa who still live in traditional rondavels on family homesteads.
Credit: Todd G. Smith, CCAPS Program
Researchers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) are working on the Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) program, which features an online mapping tool that analyzes how climate and other factors interact to threaten the security of African communities.
"The first goal was to look at whether we could more effectively identify what were the causes and locations of vulnerability in Africa, not just climate, but other kinds of vulnerability," says University of Texas at Austin professor Francis J. Gavin.
CCAPS consists of nine research teams focusing on different aspects of climate change, their relationship to different types of conflict, the government structures that exist to mitigate them, and the effectiveness of international aid in intervening. The researchers, led by University of Texas at Austin professor Joshua Busby, examined four different sources and then combined them to form a composite map.
Busby and his team relied on three regional climate model simulations that took about two months to complete on TACC's Ranger supercomputer. "The mapping tool is a key part of our effort to produce new research that could support policy making and the work of practitioners and governments in Africa," says CCAPS's Ashley Moran.
From Texas Advanced Computing Center
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