Potential impact of 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming on consecutive dry and wet days over West Africa

Klutse, Nana Ama Browne; Ajayi, Vincent O.; Gbobaniyi, Emiola; Egbebiyi, Temitope S.; Kouadio, Kouakou; Nkrumah, Francis; Quagraine, Kwesi Akumenyi; Olusegun, Christiana; Diasso, Ulrich Jacques; Abiodun, Babatunde J.; Lawal, Kamoru A.; Nikulin, Grigory; Lennard, Christopher; Dosio, Alessandro

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aab37b

Cited by 97 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…This is important as it informs climate adaptation and mitigation policy, planning as well as implementation for the countries within the southern African region, and in consideration of the Paris Agreement. The study is part of a series of papers generated within the CORDEX Africa analysis activities (www.csag.uct.ac.za/cordex-africa/) which focus on West (Klutse et al 2018), East (Osima et al 2018), Central (Pokam et al 2018) and pan Africa (Nikulin et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The southern African climate under 1.5 °C and 2 °C of global warming as simulated by CORDEX regional climate models

Maure

Pinto

Ndebele-Murisa

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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137

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Results from an 25 regional climate model simulations from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment Africa initiative are used to assess the projected changes in temperature and precipitation over southern Africa at two global warming levels (GWLs), namely 1.5 • C and 2.0 • C, relative to pre-industrial values, under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. The results show a robust increase in temperature compared to the control period ranging from 0.5 • C-1.5 • C for the 1.5 • C GWL and from 1.5 • C-2.5 • C, for the 2.0 • C GWL. Areas in the south-western region of the subcontinent, covering South Africa and parts of Namibia and Botswana are projected to experience the largest increase in temperature, which are greater than the global mean warming, particularly during the September-October-November season. On the other hand, under 1.5 • C GWL, models exhibit a robust reduction in precipitation of up to 0.4 mm day −1 (roughly 20% of the climatological values) over the Limpopo Basin and smaller areas of the Zambezi Basin in Zambia, and also parts of Western Cape, South Africa. Models project precipitation increase of up to 0.1 mm day −1 over central and western South Africa and in southern Namibia. Under 2.0 • C GWL, a larger fraction of land is projected to face robust decreases between 0.2 and 0.4 mm day −1 (around 10%-20% of the climatological values) over most of the central subcontinent and parts of western South Africa and northern Mozambique. Decreases in precipitation are accompanied by increases in the number of consecutive dry days and decreases in consecutive wet days over the region. The importance of achieving the Paris Agreement is imperative for southern Africa as the projected changes under both the 1.5 • C, and more so, 2.0 • C GWL imply significant potential risks to agricultural and economic productivity, human and ecological systems health and water resources with implied increase in regional water stresses.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The southern African climate under 1.5 °C and 2 °C of global warming as simulated by CORDEX regional climate models

Maure

Pinto

Ndebele-Murisa

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

Self Cite

137

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“…More recently, Dosio et al (2018) projected a significant increase of heat wave magnitude over this region even under the 1.5°C target. Only few studies compared changes between the two warming targets with a focus over West Africa, but was limited to the issue of wet and dry spells (Klutse et al, 2018) and crop yields (Faye et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected Heat Stress Under 1.5 °C and 2 °C Global Warming Scenarios Creates Unprecedented Discomfort for Humans in West Africa

et al. 2018

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Heat and discomfort indices are applied to the multimodel ensemble mean of COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment-Africa regional climate model projections to investigate future changes in heat stress and the proportion of human population at risk under 1.5°C and 2°C global warming scenarios over West Africa. The results show that heat stress of category Extreme Caution is projected to extend spatially (up to 25%) over most of the Gulf of Guinea, Sahel, and Sahara desert areas, with different regional coverage during the various seasons. Similarly, the projected seasonal proportion of human population at discomfort substantially increases to more than 50% over most of the region. In particular, in June-August over the Sahel and the western Sahara desert, new areas (15% of West Africa) where most of the population is at risk emerge. This indicates that from 50% to almost everyone over most of the Sahel countries and part of the western Sahara desert is at risk of possible heat cramp, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke in future climate scenarios. These conditions become more frequent and are accompanied by the emergence of days with dangerous heat stress category during which everyone feels discomfort and is vulnerable to a likely heat cramp and heat exhaustion. In general, all the above features are more extended and more frequent in the 2°C than in the 1.5°C scenario. Protective measures are thus required for outdoor workers, occupational settings in hot environments, and people engaged in strenuous activities.

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“…Although Africa is one of the regions projected to be hard-hit by the brunt of climate change (Niang et al, 2014), similar studies on the impacts of 1.5 and 2°C of global warming have been relatively limited in comparison to other parts of the world. However, in the recent past, there have been studies that employed regional climate models driven by global models from phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5; Taylor et al, 2012) in investigating climate risks at 1.5°C and/or 2°C warming levels over Africa (Klutse et al, 2018;Maure et al, 2018;Nikulin et al, 2018;Osima et al, 2018;Pokam Mba et al, 2018). The collective finding from these studies is that the 0.5°C upsurge in global warming from 1.5°C leads to insignificant increases in precipitation in most parts, especially in the subtropics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High‐Temperature Extreme Events Over Africa Under 1.5 and 2 °C of Global Warming

et al. 2019

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With anthropogenic global warming, heat‐related extreme events are projected to increase in severity and frequency. Already vulnerable regions like Africa will be hard‐hit. Therefore, such regions could benefit from low global warming levels. Using the Community Earth System Model low warming simulations, we investigate changes in temperature extremes across Africa as a function of global mean temperature in the context of the implications of the Paris Agreement's targets. A significant warming across Africa is projected at the 1.5 °C warming world and is amplified at the 2 °C world, exceeding the mean global warming rate. Specifically, North Africa and East Africa regions are projected to have the highest and lowest temperature changes of 0.63 °C (0.60–0.67 °C) and 0.50 °C (0.47–0.54 °C), respectively, between the 1.5 and 2 °C warmer worlds. Consequently, hot events are also estimated to increase with global warming. We showed that limiting warming to 1.5 °C instead of 2 °C may lead to 29% (27–31%) to 35% (33–37%) reduction in severity of hot events and to 31% (30–33%) to 42% (39–48%) reduction in the frequency of the threshold‐based high‐temperature events across Africa. The highest reductions are projected over North Africa. Furthermore, restricting warming to 0.5 °C lower than 2 °C might also result in 28% (34–40%) to 37% (25–34%) reduction in severity of once‐in‐10/20‐year heat events across Africa with North Africa having the highest benefits than tropical regions. Thus, restricting warming to low levels may indeed translate to substantial benefits of reduced intensity and frequency of extreme heat events across Africa.

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Potential impact of 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming on consecutive dry and wet days over West Africa

Cited by 97 publications

References 25 publications

The southern African climate under 1.5 °C and 2 °C of global warming as simulated by CORDEX regional climate models

The southern African climate under 1.5 °C and 2 °C of global warming as simulated by CORDEX regional climate models

Projected Heat Stress Under 1.5 °C and 2 °C Global Warming Scenarios Creates Unprecedented Discomfort for Humans in West Africa

High‐Temperature Extreme Events Over Africa Under 1.5 and 2 °C of Global Warming

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