Future climate change in the Agulhas system and its associated impact on South African rainfall

Daher, Houraa; Kirtman, Ben P.

doi:10.17159/sajs.2023/13733

i

Future climate change in the Agulhas system and its associated impact on South African rainfall

2023
By Daher, Houraa ; Kirtman, Ben P.

Details

Journal Title:

South African Journal of Science
Personal Author:

Daher, Houraa ; Kirtman, Ben P.
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
Description:

South African climate variability has been linked to changes in both the Agulhas system and external forcing (i.e. CO2 and ozone). We analysed future climate change in the Agulhas system volume transport and its associated impacts on South Africa’s precipitation using the Community Climate System Model version 4 as part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, phase 5. Output from one historical and three future greenhouse gas emission scenarios were examined to project various climate storylines. We found that the Agulhas Current volume transport decreases across all three scenarios and that the current displays a strong baroclinic component with an increase in transport at the surface and decrease at intermediate depths. Agulhas leakage was found to increase with historical emissions. Additionally, an east-west dipole pattern for convective precipitation was found over South Africa, with an increase over the eastern region related to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and a decrease in the western region linked to the location of Hadley cell edge latitude. Moving into the 21st century, future predictions in regional climate variability are shown to be dependent on the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions and are extremely important for South Africa, a region prone to drought and flooding and home to a large population dependent on rain-fed agriculture.
Keywords:

General Agricultural And Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics And Molecular Biology General Earth And Planetary Sciences General Agricultural And Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics And Molecular Biology General Earth And Planetary Sciences General Agricultural And Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics And Molecular Biology General Earth And Planetary Sciences
Source:

South African Journal of Science, 119(7/8)
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2023/13733
ISSN:

1996-7489
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

Academy of Science of South Africa
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA15OAR4320064 ; Grant no. NA18OAR4310293
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:b484fdcf58ffcdc26938eafe80fdbb2d53e7e6254acc5b22a1e530e0b53a74f8
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/59073/noaa_59073_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 2.78 MB ]

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