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Brief communication. Drought likelihood for East Africa

Yang, Hui; Huntingford, Chris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5941-7770. 2018 Brief communication. Drought likelihood for East Africa. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 18 (2). 491-497. 10.5194/nhess-18-491-2018

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Abstract/Summary

The East Africa drought in autumn of year 2016 caused malnutrition, illness and death. Close to 16 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya needed food, water and medical assistance. Many factors influence drought stress and response. However, inevitably the following question is asked: are elevated greenhouse gas concentrations altering extreme rainfall deficit frequency? We investigate this with general circulation models (GCMs). After GCM bias correction to match the climatological mean of the CHIRPS data-based rainfall product, climate models project small decreases in probability of drought with the same (or worse) severity as 2016 ASO (August to October) East African event. This is by the end of the 21st century compared to the probabilities for present day. However, when further adjusting the climatological variability of GCMs to also match CHIRPS data, by additionally bias-correcting for variance, then the probability of drought occurrence will increase slightly over the same period.

Item Type: Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.5194/nhess-18-491-2018
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas: Hydro-climate Risks (Science Area 2017-)
ISSN: 1561-8633
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.: Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.
NORA Subject Terms: Meteorology and Climatology
Date made live: 22 Feb 2018 14:20 +0 (UTC)
URI: https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/519374

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