Understanding the variability of heatwave characteristics in southern Africa Southern Africa is one of the regions affected by weather-related extremes (e.g., droughts, floods, and heat waves). Heatwaves were detected using three different methods, including the 90th percentile of minimum daily temperature (CTN90pct) and the Excess Heat Factor (EHF), a relatively new method. To determine the… Read more »
Defining metrics for monitoring and evaluating the impact of co-production in climate services. Despite increased commitment to co-production as a route to developing decision-relevant climate services, there has been less focus on the metrics or criteria for determining their success and impact. Drawing from literature and recent experiences from both operational- and research-focused climate resilience-building… Read more »
“Elephants in the room” refers to those big issues that dwarf all the little nuts and bolts of research. They’re the issues that are so difficult that they tend to get avoided, or only weakly addressed. Everyone knows they’re there, but not much traction is being gained in dealing with them. In 2023 the World… Read more »
Using a Climate Change Risk Perceptions Framing to Identify Gaps in Climate Services Given the rise in climate services for decision-making, it is important to understand whether these services are meeting the context-specific needs of decision-makers, including identifying any gaps in current climate services. This study sets out to investigate the efficacy of current climate… Read more »
The April 2021 fire will be difficult to forget any time soon. One year later, what have we learnt about this fire and the risk of another big one?
In this Episode we explore the concept of the climate services value chain – the idea that climate information is produced by scientists and then fed down a chain of intermediaries who tailor or transform it, until it reaches its intended “end” user.” This user then incorporates that information into decision making. Within the climate… Read more »
In this episode, we have a frank conversation about why people use, or don’t use climate information. Seasonal forecasts are presented as a particularly interesting example, because, despite the potential value of seasonal forecasts for informing decision-making in the farming sector for example, they aren’t used much. In fact there seems to be quite a bit… Read more »
A decade of sustained African climate science mentorship In this Episode we talk about the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) and in particular Cordex-Africa and the role it has played in developing the capacity of African scientists to conduct climate-related research in Africa. Dr Chris Lennard takes us through the reasons behind the development of… Read more »
Climate strikes, demanding change… September the 20th saw a wave of global “climate strikes” across the world, including one here in Cape Town, South Africa. The general narrative behind these protests is that governments have failed “us” and the demand is for immediate, radical, action. For a long time I’ve wondered about this narrative. The… Read more »