African Climate Change: Taking the Shorter Route

Washington, Richard; Harrison, Mike T.; Conway, Declan; Black, Emily; Challinor, Andrew J.; Grimes, D. I. F.; Jones, R. G.; Morse, Andrew P.; Kay, Gillian; Todd, Martin C.

doi:10.1175/bams-87-10-1355

Cited by 219 publications

(168 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

166

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Yet African climate has received a lack of research attention: both in general (Washington et al 2006), and in the case of extreme event attribution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attribution of extreme weather events in Africa: a preliminary exploration of the science and policy implications

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Extreme weather events are a significant cause of loss of life and livelihoods, particularly in vulnerable countries and communities in Africa. Such events or their probability of occurring may be, or are, changing due to climate change with consequent changes in the associated risks. To adapt to, or to address loss and damage from, this changing risk we need to understand the effects of climate change on extreme weather events and their impacts. The emerging science of probabilistic event attribution can provide scientific evidence about the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to changes in risk of extreme events. This research has the potential to be useful for climate change adaptation, but there is a need to explore its application in vulnerable developing countries, particularly those in Africa, since the majority of existing event attribution studies have focused on mid-latitude events. Here we explain the methods of, and implications of, different approaches to attributing extreme weather events in an African context. The analysis demonstrates that different ways of framing attribution questions can lead to very different assessments of change in risk. Crucially, defining the most appropriate attribution question to ask is not a science decision but one that needs to be made in dialogue with those stakeholders who will use the answers. This is true of all attribution studies but may be particularly relevant in a tropical context, suggesting that collaboration between scientists and policy-makers is a priority for Africa.

show abstract

“…Yet African climate has received a lack of research attention: both in general (Washington et al 2006), and in the case of extreme event attribution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attribution of extreme weather events in Africa: a preliminary exploration of the science and policy implications

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Recently, Washington et al (2006) highlighted the lack of systematic understanding of the basic state of the atmospheric circulation over critical parts of Africa. The authors noted that improvements in understanding the basic circulation patterns across Africa are essential for improving the management of socio-economic activities affected by climate variability and future climate change, not only in Africa but also on a more global scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large‐scale atmospheric circulation and global sea surface temperature associations with Horn of Africa June–September rainfall

Segele

Lamb

Leslie

2008

Intl Journal of Climatology

145

171

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study uses correlation, regression, and composite analyses for the period 1970-1999 to explore the relationships between the June-September rainfall in the Horn of Africa (especially Ethiopian) and large-scale regional atmospheric circulation patterns across Africa and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and global sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Abundant rainfall in the Horn of Africa is associated with enhanced westerlies across western and central Africa. These westerlies are produced by a stronger north-east directed mean sea level pressure (MSLP) gradient resulting from MSLP intensification over the Gulf of Guinea and deepening of the monsoon trough across the Arabian Peninsula. This is reflected by a strong correlation (−0.71) between 5-day (pentad) Ethiopian rainfall and the Gulf of Guinea minus the Arabian Peninsula MSLP difference. This correlation decreases to −0.39 when the seasonal cycles are removed from both time series. A wet Horn of Africa monsoon is also associated with deep moist air extending up to mid-troposphere and large water vapour transport convergence across much of Ethiopia, a strong Somali low-level jet, and a strong tropical easterly jet (TEJ). Although there are large changes in TEJ strength, the position of the jet axis shows little variation between wet and dry events. Associated with the TEJ, the strongest upper level divergence occurs at 100 hPa, where the raw/de-seasonalized zonal wind speed correlates negatively (−0.71/−0.23) with the corresponding Ethiopian rainfall at the pentad time-scale. Furthermore, SSTs over the equatorial Pacific, Indian, and southern Atlantic Oceans correlate strongly with contemporary Ethiopian summer rainfall. In general, Ethiopian rainfall is suppressed during El Niño and enhanced during La Niña. This identification and documentation of the regional atmospheric circulation patterns and global SST anomalies directly linked to rainfall variability over Ethiopia/Horn of Africa, are crucial for developing statistical prediction schemes and designing climate model simulations for the region on intra-seasonal to inter-annual time-scales.

show abstract

“…Nevertheless, if we are to go beyond minimization of vulnerability to today's climate, we desire information on how climate will change in the coming decades on regional or smaller scales (Bharwani et al 2005)-preferably in the form of a seamless prediction across time-scales (Washington et al 2006). To the extent that model-based information is relevant to our decision, it can be used in a climate risk management framework, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Issues in the interpretation of climate model ensembles to inform decisions

Stainforth

Downing

Washington

et al. 2007

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

Self Cite

175

141

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is a scientific consensus regarding the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This has led to substantial efforts to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions and thereby mitigate the impacts of climate change on a global scale. Despite these efforts, we are committed to substantial further changes over at least the next few decades. Societies will therefore have to adapt to changes in climate. Both adaptation and mitigation require action on scales ranging from local to global, but adaptation could directly benefit from climate predictions on regional scales while mitigation could be driven solely by awareness of the global problem; regional projections being principally of motivational value. We discuss how recent developments of large ensembles of climate model simulations can be interpreted to provide information on these scales and to inform societal decisions. Adaptation is most relevant as an influence on decisions which exist irrespective of climate change, but which have consequences on decadal time-scales. Even in such situations, climate change is often only a minor influence; perhaps helping to restrict the choice of 'no regrets' strategies. Nevertheless, if climate models are to provide inputs to societal decisions, it is important to interpret them appropriately. We take climate ensembles exploring model uncertainty as potentially providing a lower bound on the maximum range of uncertainty and thus a non-discountable climate change envelope. An analysis pathway is presented, describing how this information may provide an input to decisions, sometimes via a number of other analysis procedures and thus a cascade of uncertainty. An initial screening is seen as a valuable component of this process, potentially avoiding unnecessary effort while guiding decision makers through issues of confidence and robustness in climate modelling information. Our focus is the usage of decadal to centennial time-scale climate change simulations as inputs to decision

show abstract

African Climate Change: Taking the Shorter Route

Cited by 219 publications

References 41 publications

Attribution of extreme weather events in Africa: a preliminary exploration of the science and policy implications

Attribution of extreme weather events in Africa: a preliminary exploration of the science and policy implications

Large‐scale atmospheric circulation and global sea surface temperature associations with Horn of Africa June–September rainfall

Issues in the interpretation of climate model ensembles to inform decisions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About