Observed trends in climate over Southern Africa

Abstract

The body of work on historical climate trends has been steadily increasing during the last decade. Global mean annual temperatures have increased by 0.85°C since 1880 and are projected to increase by 0.3 to 2.5 °C by 2050, relative to the 1985-2005 climatological average (Stocker et al., 2013). Along with 1998 and 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016 are widely recognised as the warmest years on record. The regional distribution of temperature increases is not uniform, however, and some regions have experienced greater change than others. This chapter presents: An analysis of observed trends in land- and sea-surface temperatures as well as rainfall across southern Africa over the last five decades using gridded climate products (CRU TEMv4, CRU TS 3.2, and HadSST); Estimates of the rate of relative sea level rise around the southern tip of Africa.