Africa is on the front line of the climate emergency, yet does not have the technology to forecast extreme weather events
Significant investment in Africa’s adaptation to climate change, including better forecasting, will be an urgent goal. In August, he and colleagues warned in the journal Nature that climate change will cost Africa more than £40 billion every year by 2050. By then, Africa’s population is expected to have doubled.
Fewer than 20% of sub-Saharan African countries provide reliable weather services, the report said. “Weather stations are so far apart that their data cannot be extrapolated to the local level due to the varying terrain and altitude.” Mr van de Giesen is the co-director of the Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory, a project that has helped to set up about 650 low-cost local weather monitoring stations in collaboration with schools and other entities across 20 African countries.