Introduction
Background
In some parts of Africa, the climate has warmed by 2°C higher than the 1981-2010 averages and has three years of the warmest years 2010, 2016, and 2019 on record in the same decade (World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2020). The current changes have tremendously impacted the continent with an increased occurrence climate hazards and extreme weather events such as cyclones: tropical cyclone Idai and tropical cyclone kenneth in southern Africa, the extremes of prolonged drought and erratic flood-causing rains in eastern Africa that have led to loss of lives (human and animals), destruction of property and a ripple effect on the livelihoods of people on the continent.
Aerial view of Mozambique affected by floods due to the tropical cyclone Idai courtesy of the United Nations
Failed crop due to extreme drought in Eastern Africa - EU Science hub ©Stéphane Bidouze - stock.adobe.com 2022
While the continent faces these increased extreme weather events in the recent decade, the Sixth IPCC report on Climate Change: The Physical Science Basis reports that the continent will more certainly face more hazards related to heat and precipitation with an increased impact on food systems, ecosystems, freshwater, health, poverty and livelihoods, cities as well as security and conflict (Trisos et al., 2022).
Evidently, the impacts vary across the African plane with more areas having higher magnitude and rates of change for example the rapid expansion of the Sahara desert in Northern Africa (Wilson & Primack, 2019) and rapid temperature increases in parts of Angola and Namibia is southern Africa while areas in the northwest like Mauritania maintain a cooler temperature (World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2020). These differences have been attributed to local forces such as ocean circulation patterns, vegetation, and topography among others (Lennard et al., 2018; Seneviratne et al., 2021).
Research Objective
Whereas the rapid climate change is a global concern due to the current and projected impacts, the African continent is severely underprepared and adapted to these impacts. And yet research and climate data are wide gaps partially due to the sparse and intermittent weather station data and funding (Trisos et al., 2022).
This project aims to contribute to the documentation of trends of climate data in Africa with a focus on variations in regional/climatic zones over a temporal scale. This will be achieved by analyzing climate trends for Mean Annual Average Temperature (MAT) and Total Annual Precipitation (TAP) over time.
This research will serve as a basis for more localized research so as to inform tailored climate-related policy and also a basis for wider research to develop free scale climate data for Africa as is ClimateAB, ClimateEU among others (Hamann et al., 2013; Mbogga et al., 2010).