Climate Change Detection and Attribution in Tropical Africa

Aschalew, Assefa (2007) Climate Change Detection and Attribution in Tropical Africa. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.

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Abstract

This thesis tries to address the Tropical African climate change detection and attribution. Externally driven climate change is detected by applying different statistical methods in independent data covering many parts of the climate system, including land surface temperature, ocean surface temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, atmospheric circulation, and variables of the free atmosphere, such as atmospheric temperature (Air temperature), Humidity, and the Outgoing Longwave Radiation. The observed climate changes are very unlikely to be due only to natural climate variability, and they are consistent with the response to anthropogenic and natural external forcings of the climate system that are simulated with climate models. Scientific evidences indicate that natural derivers such as solar variability and volcanic activity are at most partially responsible for the large-scale temperature changes observed over the last century in the tropical Africa, and therefore, the large fraction of the warming over the past 50 years in this area can be attributed to greenhouse gas increases and the Land Use-Land Cover changes. The results obtained from the analyses reveal that: • An increase in temperature of 0.010C per decade from 1977 to 2006 • An increase in precipitation of 0.03mm per decade from1969 to 1998, and • An decrease in Soil Moisture of 2.26mm per decade from1977 to 2006 With regard to the attribution to the observed changes it is found that: • The 42% of precipitation change from 1969 to 1998 is directly associated with CO2, Soil Moisture, and SSTs (Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans) changes together in space and time over the region, • The 69% of temperature change from 1974 to 2003 is directly associated with CO2, Soil Moisture, and SSTs (Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans) in space and time over the region. Therefore, with the partial fulfillment of this research it has been tried to give a more research-based information about the current status of the tropical Africa, hopping that it will serve as an indicator to the likely changing climate in the future.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences
Divisions:	Africana
Depositing User:	Selom Ghislain
Date Deposited:	24 Aug 2018 12:58
Last Modified:	24 Aug 2018 12:58
URI:	http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/4853

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