{"id":96423,"date":"2017-07-12T02:47:40","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T00:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/droughts-in-east-africa-some-headway-in-unpacking-whats-causing-them-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2017-07-12T02:47:40","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T00:47:40","slug":"droughts-in-east-africa-some-headway-in-unpacking-whats-causing-them-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/droughts-in-east-africa-some-headway-in-unpacking-whats-causing-them-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Droughts in East Africa: some headway in unpacking what’s causing them | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Droughts in East Africa: some headway in unpacking what’s causing them<\/a>: <\/p>\n

There have been successive large scale droughts in East Africa.<\/span> Shutterstock<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Drought is a common phenomenon in East Africa and has occurred throughout known history. Now, with climate change top of the mind, whenever there\u2019s a drought some are quick to blame climate change as the \u201ccause\u201d. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fair scientific question to ask: Are these droughts (in part) the result of changes in the earth\u2019s climate brought about by human activities? Or are they solely the result of natural processes?<\/p>\n

With successive large scale droughts in East Africa in 2010\/11, 2014, 2015 and the ongoing drought, it\u2019s easy to assume climate change caused by human behaviour does indeed play a role. <\/p>\n

But droughts are complex extreme events that result from a combination of drivers. In the atmosphere these include; regular climate variability \u2013 including day-to-day weather \u2013 but also larger seasonal patterns related to cycles, such as El Nino and La Nina. It could be human-induced drivers \u2013 like greenhouse gas emissions, or events like volcanic eruptions. <\/p>\n

Beyond the atmosphere itself, the condition of water reserves, soil, and vegetation are critical. This could of course be coupled to human activity like irrigation or the number of livestock. <\/p>\n

Finally, whether a drought becomes a problem doesn\u2019t just depend on the meteorological conditions but on human decisions on the ground. For example, the effects of a lack of rainfall strongly depends on human vulnerability: how dependent on the climate are people\u2019s livelihoods, do they have assets or financial reserves, and access to markets? <\/p>\n

Attribution science<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s first look at the science. It\u2019s impossible to say for any single event that it could not have occurred without anthropogenic \u2013 caused by human activity \u2013 influence. But, in the same way that loading a dice can increase the likelihood of rolling a six, the presence of human-induced climate change can<\/em> alter the likelihood<\/em> that a drought will occur. <\/p>\n

In the last few years there\u2019s been rapid development in the science of quantifying what role human activity plays in bringing about extreme weather events. These links can be established fairly routinely for some extreme events. But for others we are pushing the boundaries of this new emerging field. Droughts in a relatively data poor region like East Africa belong in this category.<\/p>\n

With the World Weather Attribution initiative and the Climate and Development Knowledge Network we are aiming to shed light on this. We are assessing whether climate change, brought about by human activities, altered the risk of the ongoing drought in Kenya and Somalia. <\/p>\n

We are not the first to do an \u201cattribution\u201d study like this in East Africa. But we are the first to:<\/p>\n