Zambia: More extreme weather coming in the next few years
In the aftermath of the storms that battered Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal‚ an expert in hydro-climatology from the University of Cape Town has predicted that climate change is likely to influence more extreme weather patterns in South Africa in the coming years.
“While it is not possible to look at a single event and attribute its occurrence to climate change‚ we do expect it will affect rainfall locally and will increase in intensity‚ with extreme events becoming more extreme‚” said Piotr Wolski from UCT’s Climate System Analysis Group.
But he said the current weather occurrences needed to be studied further.
“In practice it can increase the odds of a thunderstorm of great magnitude. Where it might take place every 100 years in a natural climate‚ it might increase to once every 30 years because of climate change.”
CIFOR