CSIR makes progress on first African climate change model
CSIR natural resources and environment executive director May Hermanus and CSIR principal researcher Dr Rebecca Garland discuss the new Africa-developed earth system model.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is making progress in developing the first Africa-based earth system model to provide reliable projections of the potential impact of climate change on the continent.
The model will provide input into the coupled model intercomparison project phase 6 (CMIP6) and the sixth assessment report (AR6) of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), providing an adequate understanding of climate variability in Africa and the Southern Ocean.
“It is a first for the African continent. It is a coupled model, so it is linking oceans – the work that we do in the Southern Ocean – the atmosphere and land. We will incorporate the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere and the oceans and the interactions,” says CSIR natural resources and environment executive director May Hermanus.
While climate change is a global challenge, the research effort to deal with it is disproportionately concentrated in the northern hemisphere and, of the 30 global climate models in existence, only one model focuses on the southern hemisphere.
“We (Africa) are particularly vulnerable to climate change variabilities,” she says, adding that the CSIR has invested about R20-million into the new model to provide answers to questions such as whether climate change will result in the more frequent occurrence of strong El Niño events and drought in the Southern African region, and what might happen to Africa’s climate if greenhouse-gas concentrations continue increasing.
“At the CSIR, we are looking through an African lens. In Africa, we are concerned with the processes that impact us, from the Southern Ocean to the land dynamics, and how they all combine,” says CSIR principal researcher Dr Rebecca Garland, stressing the importance of having an Africa-led model.
In the AR4 and the AR5 of the IPCC, Africa was the only continent for which climate models have not improved.
“We are focusing on improving the representation of the system on the continent,” she says.
Now, no fewer than three dedicated CSIR researchers are serving as coordinating lead authors on developing the fully coupled variable-resolution earth system model to deliver Africa-derived projections of future global climate change.
The CSIR became the first CMIP6-registered group in Africa in 2015 and is collaborating with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, in Australia, to develop the new model to contribute to the CMIP6 and the AR6.
The IPCC’s assessment reports are deemed the most important summary of scientific climate change knowledge globally and are a key input into the international negotiations aimed at tackling climate change.
According to the CSIR, the current global models display data at a resolution of 50 km to 200 km, which is inadequate to allow for an understanding of the fine scale dynamics.
“This new model will include processes at a resolution of 1 to 10 km, which we think will enhance the climate sensitivity of the model in respect of the ocean and land in the southern hemisphere,” it explains.
This will also make the decadal and centenary projections more accurate.
According to the IPCC, the AR6 synthesis report would be finalised in 2022, just prior to the first “global stocktake” in 2023 by the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is when countries will review progress under the Paris Agreement towards their goal of keeping global warming to below 2º C above preindustrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5º C.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation