CONSULTANCY - Climate Modelling and Downscaling Expert - SSA-2026-ROAF-RCO-11

Organizational Context

Rwanda is highly vulnerable to climate variability and change due to its dependence on climate-sensitive sectors, including agriculture, water resources and ecosystems. Increasing temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, particularly droughts and floods, are affecting livelihoods, infrastructure and economic development. These challenges underscore the need for robust, high-resolution and nationally relevant climate information to support early warning, climate-risk management, adaptation planning and climate-resilient development. Rwanda is advancing its national adaptation agenda, including its National Adaptation Plan process. Effective medium- to long-term adaptation planning requires scientifically robust climate projections at spatial and temporal scales that adequately represent the country's complex topography, climatological characteristics and agro-ecological diversity. Meteo Rwanda has made progress in strengthening national climate information and developing climate projections. However, further technical work is required to evaluate and strengthen available projections and expand the availability of high-resolution climate information suitable for national, sub-national and sectoral applications. Global Climate Models provide essential information on future climate conditions but are generally produced at spatial resolutions that are too coarse for many national and local applications in Rwanda. Appropriate downscaling, bias correction and validation are therefore required to translate global climate projections into locally relevant information that can support planning and decision-making. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), through the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Accelerated Support Window (ASW), seeks to engage a Climate Modelling and Downscaling Expert. The consultant will work closely with Meteo Rwanda to generate and evaluate high-resolution climate projections while strengthening national technical capacity to independently undertake climate modelling, downscaling, validation, analysis and interpretation.

Job Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to strengthen the technical and institutional capacity of Meteo Rwanda to generate, evaluate, interpret and apply high-resolution climate projections for Rwanda. The consultant will develop and apply an appropriate climate-downscaling methodology, evaluate available climate-model products against observations, generate and validate high-resolution projections of key climate variables and extremes, and strengthen the capacity of Meteo Rwanda staff to independently undertake and sustain these processes. The assignment will also support the development of climate information products that can be applied to early warning, climate-risk management, adaptation planning and climate-sensitive sectoral decision-making.

Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of WMO and in close technical coordination with Meteo Rwanda, the consultant will undertake the following tasks: Task 1: Develop the Methodology and Institutional Engagement Framework for Nationally Owned Climate Projections The consultant will review relevant national climate policies and strategies, previous climate studies, available observational datasets and existing climate projections to establish the technical and institutional requirements for generating nationally relevant high-resolution climate projections. In consultation with Meteo Rwanda and relevant national stakeholders, the consultant will identify priority climate variables and indices, future time horizons, spatial and temporal scales, and climate-information requirements for national, sub-national and sectoral applications. The consultations will also identify priority uses of the climate projections, including their application to climate-risk management, adaptation planning and climate-sensitive sectoral decision-making. Based on the review and consultations, the consultant will prepare an institutional engagement plan, methodological approach and training plan. The methodology will identify and justify the appropriate climate models, future climate scenarios, observational datasets, validation approaches, and statistical and/or dynamical downscaling techniques. The proposed methodology should take into account scientific robustness, computational requirements, data availability and Meteo Rwanda's capacity to replicate, update and sustain the approach beyond the consultancy. Task 2: Generate, Downscale and Validate Climate Projections and Strengthen Technical Capacity Working closely with Meteo Rwanda meteorologists and climate scientists, the consultant will undertake quality control, processing and preparation of historical observational datasets, including rainfall and minimum and maximum temperature, required for climate-model evaluation, downscaling and validation. The consultant will evaluate available historical climate-model products against ground observations to assess their ability to represent Rwanda's historical climatology and relevant climate extremes. Based on this assessment, the consultant will acquire, process and evaluate selected climate-model outputs and apply appropriate downscaling and bias-correction techniques. The consultant will generate and validate high-resolution climate projections for key variables, including temperature and precipitation, and relevant indicators of climate extremes for agreed future time horizons. The consultant will provide a clear scientific justification for the selection of models, scenarios and downscaling methodologies and document the associated assumptions and limitations. The analysis will assess projected climate trends, uncertainty and inter-model variability and identify robust climate-change signals related to temperature, rainfall variability and extreme events. Projected changes will be analysed and mapped across Rwanda's relevant climatological and agro-ecological zones to support national, sub-national and sectoral applications. A significant component of this task will involve hands-on capacity development and knowledge transfer. The consultant will work alongside Meteo Rwanda staff throughout the modelling and downscaling process and provide practical training and mentoring in climate modelling, downscaling, bias correction, model evaluation and validation, uncertainty analysis, climate-extremes analysis, data processing and interpretation of climate projections. The consultant will also produce high-resolution climate maps, datasets and visualization products to facilitate interpretation and application of the projections. All datasets, maps, model outputs, scripts, codes, methodologies and associated technical documentation generated through the assignment will be systematically organized and transferred to Meteo Rwanda to ensure institutional ownership, replicability and sustainability. Task 3: Document Findings and Develop Climate Information for Decision-Makers The consultant will consolidate the technical work into a comprehensive report documenting the methodology, datasets, model-selection criteria, validation results, downscaled climate projections, analysis of climate extremes, uncertainty and inter-model variability, limitations, challenges and recommendations for future work. The consultant will translate the technical findings into accessible climate information products for decision-makers and other users. This will include a concise Summary for Decision-Makers/Policymakers, supported by appropriate maps and visualizations, presenting the principal findings, implications, uncertainties, limitations and recommendations for national and sub-national adaptation planning and climate-sensitive sectoral decision-making. The consultant will support the presentation and dissemination of the results to Meteo Rwanda and relevant stakeholders and incorporate agreed technical comments into the final outputs.

Work Experience

Demonstrated professional experience in meteorology, climate science, climate modelling, climate projections and climate downscaling. Demonstrated experience undertaking assignments involving the downscaling of climate-change projections. Demonstrated experience working with Global Climate Model datasets and climate-change scenarios. Demonstrated practical experience in statistical and/or dynamical climate downscaling, bias correction, climate-model evaluation and validation. Experience in analysing climate extremes, climate trends, model uncertainty and inter-model variability. Demonstrated experience in processing, analysing and visualizing large climate datasets using relevant computational and geospatial tools. Demonstrated experience in developing high-resolution climate projections and translating climate-model outputs into information relevant to national, sub-national and sectoral decision-making. Proven experience in providing training and technical capacity development in climate modelling and/or climate downscaling. Experience conducting climate-change and resilience research in East Africa would be an advantage. Relevant scientific publications in meteorology, climate science, climate modelling and/or climate projections would be an advantage.

Skills

Strong analytical, scientific and problem-solving skills. Ability to manage, analyse and interpret complex climate datasets. Ability to translate technical climate-science information into clear and usable products for technical and non-technical audiences. Excellent technical writing, presentation and communication skills. Ability to work collaboratively with national technical institutions and multidisciplinary teams. Strong capacity-development and knowledge-transfer skills.

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