Changes in extreme weather in Africa under global warming

Many of the impacts of climate change will materialize through
changes in extreme events such as droughts, floods, and storms. Such
extremes result in severe human suffering, and hamper economic
development and poverty reduction. Unfortunately, assessments of climate
change are often limited to mean temperature and precipitation. Knowledge
of changes in extremes is sparse, particularly for Africa. This brochure
presents selected results of such analyses for various parts of Africa, using
the best climate models from the upcoming IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
In some regions, different models project different trends in wet
and dry extremes. In other regions however, models show clear trends
such as increasing drought in the Kalahari and increasing floods in East
Africa. Notably, in some regions, such as Somalia and eastern Ethiopia, our
results show an increasing intensity of both floods and droughts. For more
comprehensive results, please visit www.knmi.nl/africa_scenarios.