From the USGS here, I thought their mission was the United States, hence the US in USGS. Seems they’ve expanded the mission to Africa now. Disappointingly, there’s no mention of land use change, agricultural practices, or deforestation issues like the one contributing to the glacier melt on Kilimanjaro. Evapotranspiration is a very important issue for local moisture content and convective cloud development.
More Frequent Drought Likely in Eastern Africa
The increased frequency of drought observed in eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise, according to new research published in Climate Dynamics.
This poses increased risk to the estimated 17.5 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa who currently face potential food shortages.
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California, Santa Barbara, determined that warming of the Indian Ocean, which causes decreased rainfall in eastern Africa, is linked to global warming. These new projections of continued drought contradict previous scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicting increased rainfall in eastern Africa.
This new research supports efforts by the USGS and the U.S. Agency for International Development to identify areas of potential drought and famine in order to target food aid and help inform agricultural development, environmental conservation, and water resources planning.
“Global temperatures are predicted to continue increasing, and we anticipate that average precipitation totals in Kenya and Ethiopia will continue decreasing or remain below the historical average,” said USGS scientist Chris Funk. “The decreased rainfall in eastern Africa is most pronounced in the March to June season, when substantial rainfall usually occurs. Although drought is one reason for food shortages, it is exacerbated by stagnating agricultural development and continued population growth.”
As the globe has warmed over the last century, the Indian Ocean has warmed especially fast. The resulting warmer air and increased humidity over the Indian Ocean produce more frequent rainfall in that region. The air then rises, loses its moisture during rainfall, and then flows westward and descends over Africa, causing drought conditions in Ethiopia and Kenya.
“Forecasting precipitation variability from year to year is very difficult, and research on the links between global change and precipitation in specific regions is ongoing so that more accurate projections of future precipitation can be developed,” said University of California, Santa Barbara, scientist Park Williams. “It is also important to note that while sea-surface temperatures are expected to continue to increase in the Indian Ocean and cause an average decrease in rainfall in eastern Africa, there will still occasionally be very wet years because there are many factors that influence precipitation.”
Scientists compiled existing datasets on temperature, wind speed and precipitation to see what was driving climate variations in the tropical Indian and Pacific Ocean region. Most of the Indian Ocean warming is linked to human activities, particularly greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions. The Indian Ocean has warmed especially fast because it is quickly being encroached upon by the Tropical Warm Pool, which is an area with the warmest ocean surface temperatures of anywhere on earth.
This research supports efforts by the USGS and the U.S. Agency for International Development through the Famine Early Warning Systems Network. FEWS NET is a decision support system that helps target more than two billion dollars of food aid to more than 40 countries each year. Through this system, scientists are helping with early identification of agricultural drought that might trigger food insecurity. For more information, visit http://www.fews.net.
The article, “A westward extension of the warm pool intensifies the walker circulation, drying eastern Africa,” was published in Climate Dynamics and can be found at http://www.springerlink.com/content/u0352236x6n868n2/.
USGS is all over the place – mapping the Mediterranean for oil, nat. gas etc(per the recent Israeli offshore discovery), assessing the lithium deposits in Chile and Bolivia, and trapsing all over Afghanistan…
who’s paying for all this? i can guess but i don’t think i want to know….
just googling “USGSG Afghanistan” returns 191,000 hits including:
http://afghanistan.cr.usgs.gov/
unless someone else is paying for this, looks like another fed. gov’t agency out of control…great place to start with the budget cutbacks…
MJPenny says:
January 28, 2011 at 6:48 pm
So what weather events are not consistant with AGW?
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zip…………………..
“I thought their mission was the United States, hence the US in USGS.”
It is not hard to find their mission. Since the environment, the resources we rely on and the climate definitely affect the US but have global reach, it would seem reasonable for the USGS to be interested in the rest of the world — kind of like the US Marine Corps and US Department of State are have a global outlook.
Is there anything here you specifically disagree with? Are you suggesting that this is wrong because it doesn’t ALSO mention “land use change, agricultural practices, or deforestation issues”?
Actually, you missed the best target! “This is at odds with the IPCC AR4 predictions of
increased precipitation in tropical eastern Africa as a ‘likely’ response to anthropogenic global warming.” It looks like IPCC AR4 is coming up short once again!
Tim Folkerts says:
January 28, 2011 at 7:22 pm
actually, its not reasonable for the USGS to be traveling all over the world inc. the Mediterranean, Chile, Bolivia, Afghanistan, etc because we have no mineral rights in those places….just plain silly…now if other gov’ts or foreign businesses want to hire them, that’s another thing…but we don’t need welfare programs for geologists…
and another thing, who cares if the USGS is interested in the rest of the world?? we don’t own the rest of the world and its not our responsibility to run it…if you want to pay for the USGS then help yourself…i don’t….what a bunch of arrogant @ur momisugly#@ur momisugly## we have, going into Afghanistan, “no we’re not invading but hey while we’re here let’s assess the geologic value as though we own the place”…
Mohatdebos says: “This paper states that the Indian Ocean is warming the fastest”
and “Also, I wondered if it occurred to them that if the drought in East Africa was the result of a warming world, then the drought could soon be over as the world cools.”
Read again, it said the tropical warm pool was warmest OCEAN surface temp, and the worlds not cooling, all the data supports that, even if your belief doesn’t.
Jim Says: “So, again, whatever happens it’s due to CO2, AGW.”
The facts are that the globe over the long term is warming due to human caused increased co2. That has never changed. The other side of the equation is that this causes climate change. That part is unpredictable and translates into weather, likely more extreme as patterns shift over the short term, to increasingly inhospitable over the long term. How that translates regionally has never been claimed to be fact but has always been under likely or less likely scenarios.
No conflict, quite simple really, is that so hard to understand?
I must agree with Tim Folkerts. I think some of you are giving the USGS a bad rap. (I may be just a little biased of course.) Thanks for the song reminder. I remember singing that with my friends when in high school. And I still, “don’t like anybody very much”.
“jack morrow says:
January 28, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Quit worrying about Ethiopia-most of them have moved to minneapolis Minnesota.”
The fact that “most of them have moved to minneapolis Minnesota” is a BIG worry!
I don’t have a problem with “appropriate” international USGS operations. For example, they can learn a lot about volcano or earthquakes and possible prediction technologies by going to where current volcanic eruptions and active earth quake areas are.
They also have an obligation to comment on and provide appropriate technical evaluation of international projects that the U.S. has either a financial interest in or a strategic interest in (ie Panama canal construction).
In some cases definitive geological structures only occur in a few locations world wide, and you have to go where the evidence is since you can’t bring the evidence to the lab.
It is reasonable in my view for them to investigate a major drought area, as what they learn there can be applied to drought situations in the U.S. (remember the dust bowl).
It is one thing to trot off to some tropical paradise for a seminar (global warming conferences) and another thing entirely to go where the geological evidence takes you to investigate issues like water tables, and ground water depletion, erosion, drought, volcanic eruptions, tsunami investigations etc.
The field sciences by their very nature demand a world wide perspective, whether you are an oceanographer, geologist, hydrologist, archeologist etc.
It also is perfectly reasonable for the USGS to investigate the geology of Afghanistan during a window of access for two reasons. It may be another 50 years before we have relatively free access to this geological setting. No telling what they might discover about geological processes there.
Second if we can help Afghanistan build a viable mining industry that gives them some other means to make a living besides herding goats or growing opium, I think that would do a lot for the stability of the region. If that helps them to have a productive industry that can help them profit from their geographical situation, and stand on their own economic feet, rather than be the perpetual ward of neighboring industrialized nations, I consider that a good thing.
Larry
Oh my… if this prediction works as well as “droughts in Australia” I suspect the countries in question will be under two feet of water next year .. just sayin.
Funny this is the short of prediction we got continually from the CSIRO and Bureau of Met and Tim Flannery and a few other “experts” here in Oz. Until the floods of course and now they have done a 180 degree backflip to say GW can mean both Dry and Wet. No wonder people are getting fed up with this BS.
Michael says:
The facts are that the globe over the long term is warming due to human caused increased co2. That has never changed.
Neat sleight of hand there. However, over the long term, warming is due to natural variation. That’s the null hypothesis, despite what Trenberth and apparently you want to happen. Any warming due to “human caused increased co2” has yet to be proven—until that changes, your belief counts as nothing.
Katherine maybe I framed that statement incorrectly. I meant by long term as in longer than weather events and more in line with the period that is considered climate, generally about 30 years. This is proven. The previous 3 decades have been the hottest since reliable records, and increasing each decade, it has also been increasing at the same time as CO2, a known greenhouse gas. All other possible explanations that are currently knowable, such as solar activity, volcanoes and planetary cycles cannot explain the warming as a natural occurrence.
In fact, since the sun has been in a low sunspot activity we should be cooling, which makes warming even worse. What will happen when the sunspot activity increases? We are currently outside the norm for natural variation taking all known factors into account. The only explanation left is the increasing imbalance of CO2 due to man. This constitutes proof to a 95% probability according to scientists who specialise in this area and all scientific organisations.
I thought I’d heard this before!
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_indopacific.php
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/images/l1_indopacific.gif
Heres a couple of link to papers on CO2 science. Both showing that the indo-pacific warm pool was hotter than today. I taking a guess here that the Indian ocean would have been hotter than today.
These guys should be struck off. Not sure if yo can do that to scientists. They are making claims without the slightest bit of evidence. Science, this is seriously junk science, voodoo science.
I don’t have a problem with Geologists doing geology anywhere.
I do have a problem when they start running tendentious and politically inspired computer models and then wave shrouds about to try and attract some more grant money
“Global temperatures are predicted to continue increasing, and we anticipate that average precipitation totals in Kenya and Ethiopia will continue decreasing or remain below the historical average,” said USGS scientist Chris Funk.”
I can speak only for Ethiopia and Chris Funk is so wrong it borders on total ignorance of this region. Temperatures in Ethiopia are NORMAL, so too is rainfall.
“The decreased rainfall in eastern Africa is most pronounced in the March to June season, when substantial rainfall usually occurs. Although drought is one reason for food shortages, it is exacerbated by stagnating agricultural development and continued population growth.”
There is no food shortage in Ethiopia, and hasn’t been since the 1983 famine (Yes, it was drought that affected most people which were mostly in a drought prone region), contary to the statements of Chris Funk. Ethipopia is a good example of how farming practices have changed since 1983. What is in short supply is enough money to pay for the food available by the poor. If we use Teff as an example, the primary staple, has, in the last 4 years risen from ~AU$95 to AU$200 per 100Kg bag. Added to this the costs of energy/fuel rising at rates beyond inflation compounded by fuel subsidies being reduced or removed completely. As the west heads down the “carbon free” economic path, its always the poor in developing countries who are least able to absorb higher living costs.
There is an old saying- Give a man a fish and he has one good meal. Teach him to fish and he eats well for life. This is the way to go. Give people a good education and the ability to grow their own food not rely on others.
The real reason that the Horn of Africa has 17.5M starving is, as stated above, civil war. The real reason why food from America and Europe fails to get to the starving is lack of efficient transportation, lack of reasonable roads and corruption of the local governments. Oh and the civil wars.
Or as we learned in Ringworld . . ” Light a fire for a man and you keep him warm for a day, set a man on fire and he is warm for the rest of his life” .
Sorry
Whilst my own, very detailed , rainfall records show different my government insists that the past ten years of poor agricultural output have been because of persistent droughts and floods often in the same year. Prior to 2000 we were able to feed ourselves and export surpluses, not to mention furnish raw materials for a wide range of manufacturing concerns. Since then we have been dependent on the generosity of the USA for varying proportions of our food and the industries have long since closed.
Rainfall here in Zimbabwe hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years , nor has the cropping cycle. What has changed here is the type of agricultural activity. We used to do things in a modern fashion whereas nowadays we do it in a medieval style of largely subsistence farming.
This hasn’t stopped my government from demanding compensation for “climate change” from the developed world, mainly those very nations who are helping feed our , recently, poor nation. Our ministers seldom miss an opportunity to bang on about the nasty western imperialists who have changed our weather often linking it to a “regime change” agenda on the part of the west. It is never anything to do with poor government at home, as is the case I presume in Kenya.
In fact, since the sun has been in a low sunspot activity we should be cooling, which makes warming even worse. What will happen when the sunspot activity increases? We are currently outside the norm for natural variation taking all known factors into account. The only explanation left is the increasing imbalance of CO2 due to man. This constitutes proof to a 95% probability according to scientists who specialise in this area and all scientific organisations.
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There are several contentious statements in this farrago. I will focus on just one – that there is an ‘increasing imbalance of CO2 due to man.’
Please define ‘imbalance of CO2’, first generally, and then in terms of the history of this planet.
Second, please demonstrate, with hoops of steel, how your 2 propositions are bound together.
seems no one else has heard?
theres some severe flooding in Africa right now..
La Nina affects africa too
book waterwars explains the african water issues, wars dams and despots.
Looking for a drought?….just wait for the next july´s “dust bowl”….
For Mike Jewitt: your link worked . . . great . . . very interesting . . .
Please define ‘imbalance of CO2′, first generally, and then in terms of the history of this planet.
There is currently more CO2 going into the atmosphere than leaving the atmosphere, which is pretty much the definition of “out of equilibrium”.
The much of the extra CO2 is easily attributed to human activities, which have been increasing over the last century or two.
Therefore, there is currently an ‘increasing imbalance of CO2 due to man.’
Certainly there have been various imbalances throughout the history of this planet — due to changes in vegetation levels; due to volcanic outgassing; due to sequestering of carbon in coal deposits …. That does not change the fact that there is currently an imbalance, nor that the current level imbalance (ie rate of change in CO2 concentration) is exceptionally high. (Note that I am not saying the the pre-industrial levels of <300 ppm are the "right" levels for the world, only that there has been a clear change since then.)
There is certainly room to debate how much of the warming in the last 30 years or 100 years or 300 years is man-made. But given the basic physics of GHGs, it seems highly unlikely that NONE of the warming is man-made.
“Global temperatures are predicted to continue increasing, and we anticipate that average precipitation totals in Kenya and Ethiopia will continue decreasing or remain below the historical average,” said USGS scientist Chris Funk.”
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About seventeen years now of “no statistical increase” in global temperatures (and this year has started at slightly below the thirty-year average). At what point will “continue increasing,” be changed to, “begin increasing again?”