Welcome and introduction to my blog

Hello and welcome to my blog. 

Over the next few months, I will be writing a series of blogs assessing the response of Africa to anthropogenic climate change. I will be using case studies to understand some impacts. 

By now, I would hope I don't have to introduce climate change. Anthropogenic warming of the planet has caused the ongoing increase of the global average temperature. As shown in Figure 1, the average temperature has increased nearly 1.0°C in less than 40 years. In turn, this is affecting the global climate system. There is also a disparity in who is releasing these emissions, as shown in Figure 2, with less than 5% of historical global CO2 emissions coming from Africa. Whilst this warming has been disproportionately caused by the world's wealthiest nations, the effects will be felt hardest by the poorest. In 2020, The UN Climate Change and World Meterological Society co-published a study stating: "climate change is having a growing impact on the African continent, hitting the most vunerable the hardest and contributing to food insecurity, population displacement and stress on water resources". 

Figure 1: Showing the overall average temperature increase from 1901 to 2021. Source: showyourstripes.info

Figure 2: Showing the historical CO2 emissions by country/regions. Figure produced by OurWorldInData.org using data from the Global Carbon Project (GCP) and Carbon Dioxide Analysis Center (CDIAC).


Away from the physical disasters, economic and social crises are predicted. To try and sum up all the different responses for the array of ecosystems affected, I would need more than a few months and 3000 words. To combat this, I will specifically be focusing my research on Kenya. 

I want to look at both drought and flooding impacts, as well as looking at what that will mean for their agricultural economy. I would also like to talk about the current water management systems in place and look at regions where anthropogenic pollution is intersecting other issues like food security and politics. Quite a lot to cover in just a few months!

Hopefully over the next few weeks we can explore some of these issues and the intersections between them. Thanks for reading and I hope you find something interesting from the coming posts.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts on flooding in Nigeria

Image
Perennially challenges I've just written a blog on the damage that drought can have to an economy and local community. 1.4 million people have now been displaced by the opposite .  Flooding is a perennial challenge in Nigeria and this will continue in a changing climate . The climate and low relief geography in this region does tend to favour flooding and floodplains but I read something very interesting in the Conversation about the potential causes being multi-functional damming and poor management. Multifaceted and mismanaged In a perfect world, a dam should have an agreed purpose. Flood control, hydro-electricity generation, navigational channels, fisheries... There are many uses for dams but trying to fit too many of these functions into one location can result in problems. For example, a dam built upstream from a wetlands can cause wetlands downstream to dry out. This can reduce the amount of water available to the people in the downstream region (and many other issues ...
Read more

GM crops

Image
GM Crops - Burgeoning issue In 2018, 35% of Kenya's GDP came from the agriculture sector. In  Kenya, over 70% of the working age rural population works in the agricultural sector .  90% of Sub-Saharan Africa's is reliant on rain-fed agriculture . Africa and Kenya's over-reliance on this type of agriculture means that droughts can cause huge financial problems and reduce food security massively. In 2016, small holder farmers in eastern Kenya lost more than 80% of their crops. Kenya recently took the steps to lift bans on genetically modified crops to help ease some of the pressure .  Benefits of GM Africa's population is predicted to increase by over 1 billion by 2050.   Compared to Africa's population, the share of genetically engineered crop acreage is very small and only commercially cultivated in four countries .  The growing population will need to sustain itself with both food crops and cash crops to continue economic development. Studies have also shown t...
Read more

COP27, data reliability and open data

Image
So far, I have been blogging about flooding, drought and the effects on Africa. As I type, discussions at COP27 are shifting from prevention of climate change to adaptation and mitigation. Part of this was on the monitoring and how best to work together in response to climate disasters. As a response, I want to spend the next two blogs talking about mitigation strategies. In our previous lecture, we were shown data from monitoring stations in Nigeria. There were some unusual trends within the data so Julian began investigating. He found that the maintenance of the monitoring stations had declined over the years, resulting in unreliable data. Things like this might not be flashy, but they are such a basic element of monitoring and early flood detect. Large conferences like the COP sessions always involve people wanting to make inspiring speeches and making bold promises. Damaged hydrometers being repaired or replaced doesn't result in the headline grabbing news they want so this alm...
Read more