Projected Climate over the Greater Horn of Africa under 1.5 °С and 2°С global warming

We analyzed the potential effect of Global Warming Levels of 1.5 and 2 oC above pre-industrial levels (1861-1890) on the changes in the mean and extreme precipitation and temperature over the Greater Horn of Africa using a large ensemble of Regional Climate Models from the COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment initiative. The results show that, compared to the control period 1971-2000, annual mean near surface temperature is projected to increase by more than 1 and 1.5 oC over most parts of the Greater Horn of Africa, under 1.5 oC and 2 oC Global Warming Levels respectively. The highest increase is projected in the northern region, covering most of Sudan and Northern Ethiopia, with lowest increase over the coastal belt of Tanzania (~1 oC). However, the difference in warming between 2 and 1. 5 oC GWLs is higher than 0.5 oC over nearly all land points, reaching 0.8 oC over Sudan and northern part of Ethiopia. This shows that the Greater Horn of Africa will warm faster than the global mean. While projected changes in precipitation are uncertain across the Greater Horn of Africa, there’s substantial decrease over the central and northern Ethiopia. Additionally dry and wet spells are projected to increase and decrease respectively. This will negatively impact regions around coastal cities, lake regions, highlands and arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. The projected changes may have an impact on agricultural, water and health sectors, and would call for formulation of actionable policies geared towards adaptive strategies to alleviate the impacts of a 1.5 and 2 °C warming.

OSIMA S;  INDASI V;  ZAROUG M;  ENDRIS H S;  GUDOSHAVA M;  MISIANI H O;  NIMUSIIMA A;  ANYAH R O;  OTIENO G;  OGWANG B A;  JAIN Suman;  KONDOWE A L;  MWANGI E;  LENNARD Christopher;  NIKULIN Grigory;  DOSIO Alessandro; 

2018-06-04

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

JRC111076

1748-9326,   

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaba1b/meta,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC111076,   

10.1088/1748-9326/aaba1b,