10 Years of Climate Change in Africa Mapped with Satellites

Scientists are taking a closer look at the climate changes that are occurring in Africa. They've found that many areas receive drastically different amounts of rainfall today compared to just ten years ago.

The new study investigated the rainfall and greenness of plants in African regions with the help of satellite mapping technology.

"We looked at the satellite data and discovered a number of surprising hotspots of change. Some parts of the Congo, Nigeria and Madagascar appear to receive much less rainfall now compared to 10 years ago," said Heiko Balzter, co-author of the new study, in a news release. "This is an issue even in the wet tropics of the Congo, where low rainfall means restrictions to ship movements on the rivers there, which are the main transport routes in the dense jungle."

Areas of climatic vegetation degradation were located in Southern Madagascar, Nigeria, Kenya and the Garden Route region of South Africa. However, this doesn't mean that all places suffered from a lack of rainfall. Regions where more rainfall led to greener plants were mapped in West Africa, Central African Republic, West Cameroon and north-eastern part of South Africa.

"Large parts of the Sahel zone, which suffered from intense famine in the past, has greened up over the past decade, probably because of wetter weather," said Balzter. "We know that rainfall in this region depends highly on the African monsoon. The weather systems can change a lot on the time scales of tens of years. This means that our maps cannot be regarded as maps of long-term climate change impacts. They merely reflect climatic impacts over the past ten years. We know that this period is too short to relate it to the global warming debate."

What the findings do show, though, is where short term climate change is occurring. They also highlight areas where climatic changes are the likely cause of greener or browner vegetation.

The findings are published in the International Journal of Climatology.

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