Africa: Drought 100 times more likely with climate crisis – 27/04/2023 – Environment

The historic drought that affects the Horn of Africa region is the result of a combination of low rainfall and high temperatures that could not have happened without human emissions of greenhouse gases, says a scientific report published on Thursday (27) .

“Climate change caused by human activities has made agricultural drought in the Horn of Africa almost a hundred times more likely,” says a report by the WWA group (World Weather Attribution), a worldwide network of scientists that assesses the relationship between extreme weather events and the climate disorders.

The countries of the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya and Sudan) have been facing since the end of 2020 the worst drought in this huge peninsula of the eastern continent in four decades.

Five seasons of insufficient rainfall have decimated livestock and destroyed crops.

According to the UN, almost 22 million people are threatened by famine in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, a country also facing an Islamic insurgency.

According to the 19 scientists who prepared the report, climate change has had “little effect on recent annual rainfall” but has greatly influenced rising temperatures, which accelerates evapotranspiration (the evaporation of water from the ground into the atmosphere) and results in in a record dryness of soils and plants.

“It was because of climate change that this drought became so severe and exceptional”, summarized climatologist Joyce Kimoutai, who is in the group that drafted the document.

The WWA network is an organization respected for its ability to demonstrate the links between extreme weather events and global warming.

Its results do not follow the long publication process of scientific journals and are based on a scientific methodology. In this case, WWA based its study on three of the most affected areas in the Horn of Africa: southern Ethiopia and Somalia and eastern Kenya.

The network verified that in these territories climate change altered the two rainy seasons in an opposite way. That is, the wettest season “became drier and a rainfall deficit was twice as likely”, while “the short season became wetter”.

The report highlights that climate change is affecting rainfall periods in opposite ways. The longer rainy season “has become drier and a rainfall deficit is twice as likely”, while “the short season has become wetter”.

In recent years, however, “the short-season wet trend has been masked by the La Niña climate phenomenon,” which decreases tropical rainfall and for which there is no evidence that it is influenced by climate change.

In addition to this convergence of factors, the scientists conclude, rising temperatures led to record drying of soils and plants, resulting in a succession of five historic dry seasons.

“Climate change is a necessary condition for such a severe drought to happen,” they point out.

Rare until now, these droughts have a 5% chance of repeating each year, according to the report.