African Climes

Health is impacted by climate change in various ways because the wellbeing of people depends on the environment which in turn is affected by climate change. Everything required to sustain life is provided for by a habitable environment. Oxygen, freshwater, soil on which plants grow, and even the building blocks of urbanization, all that is derived from nature. But in terms of climate change, health is influenced primarily through the very important lens of water. Statistics put 80% of the world facing water insecurity in one way or another. They don’t have a safe and reliable source of enough freshwater for all their needs. Climate change will cause water scarcity through droughts and heatwaves but also floods and inundation because of too much rain, cyclones or sea level rise. Young African Medics. Image by Tyck/Iwaria To begin with, lack of enough drinking water causes dehydration and eventually death of people in times of strong drought or heatwaves. Agriculture is controlled ...

Globally, in 2022, the average temperature was 1.15 degrees (1.02-1.28) above 1850-1900 mean, this was modified by the cooling effect of the La Nina. 2015-2022 are the warmest 8 years on record with 2022 being number 5 or 6 warmest ever. Atmospheric concentrations for greenhouse gases were 415.7 plus or minus 0.2 parts per million, methane at 1908 plus or minus 2 parts per billion and Nitrous oxide at 334.5 plus or minus 0.1 ppb. This was 149%, 262% and 124% above 1750 which is preindustrial age. 2022 was the highest they’ve ever been. Ocean heat was at the highest ever in 2022 and more melt from ice sheets and thermal expansion of seawater has caused sea level rise of 4.62 millimetres per year (mmyr) from 2013-2022. The ocean has absorbed 25% of atmospheric carbon yearly causing a reduction in ocean pH by 0.017-0.027 units every decade since 1980s. In Africa, near surface temperature in 2022 was 0.16 degrees C (0.06-0.28) above the average (1991-2021) and 0.88 degrees (0.74-1.07) abov...

The report was produced by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) based on different climate variables over sea, land, air and living organisms such as air and water temperature, glacier and sea ice, leaf index, vegetative cover, water vapour, greenhouse gas fluxes, soil carbon and moisture, river discharge and lake size, permafrost and albedo, groundwater, marine life, rain and cloud cover etc. It starts with noting that Africa is warming faster than the global average at 0.3 degrees per decade between 1991-2021. 2021 is the third or fourth warmest year on record with North Africa the warmest of the six African regions (East, West, North, South, Central, Indian Ocean Island countries). Sea level rise rate is the highest globally with the Red Sea and South Western Indian Ocean recording the highest values. All related effects like coastal flooding, erosion and saline water intrusion into groundwater will affect 110-116 million people. Water will become scarce continentally and cou...