Pretoria: Researchers in South Africa are conducting ongoing research into climate dynamics in order to understand its mechanisms and consequences in the region, in the long and short term.

“The main goal of the research is to develop the tools – and improve the models – to more accurately understand and project climate and various atmospheric interactions at these time scales and ultimately to better understand climate variability and its impact on society and the economy,” the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said.

The research, which is being conducted by the South African Weather Service (SAWS), the CSIR and several universities follows the El Niño events which have been observed this year.

El Niño has an invariable impact on global weather and continues to affect the availability of water in South Africa.

“This El Niño event and other anomalies are also important scientific opportunities to test our climate models and learn with appropriate observations about their impacts on global climate dynamics and our social and economic system,” the CSIR said.

The research will help to improve skill in predicting, projecting and managing future events and prepare for climate change scale impacts.

The council said although projections of future climate change over southern Africa are robust in some aspects – for example likely drastic increases in surface temperature under low mitigation – more uncertainty surrounding other aspects – for example rainfall futures over the eastern parts of South Africa – still exists.

“One important question is the interaction between climate change and El Niño and to understand the mechanisms by which a warmer atmosphere may manifest in regional climate systems,” the CSIR said.

South African researchers are teaming up through a variety of research programmes to tackle these challenges.

SOURCE: SOUTH AFRICAN OFFICIAL NEWS