Analysing regional climate change in Africa in a 1.5°C, 2°C and 3°C global warming world

Abstract

At the 21st session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, an agreement to strengthen the effort to limit the global temperature increase well below 2 °C was decided. However, even if global warming is limited, some regions might still be substantially affected by climate change, especially for continents like Africa where the socio‐economic conditions are strongly linked to the climatic conditions. In the paper we will discuss the analysis of indices assigned to the sectors health, agriculture and infrastructure in a 1.5°C, 2°C and 3°C global warming world for the African continent. For this analysis an ensemble of ten different GCM‐RCM simulations conducted in the framework of the COordinated Downscaling EXperiment for Africa was investigated. The results show that the African continent, in particular the regions between 15°S and 15°N, has to expect an increase in hot nights and longer and more frequent heat waves even if the global temperature will be kept below 2°C. These effects intensify if the global mean temperature will exceed the 2°C threshold. Moreover, the daily rainfall intensity is expected to increase towards higher global warming scenarios and will affect especially the African Sub‐Saharan coastal regions.