Climate Change May Have Caused Severe Drought in East Africa in 2014

Global climate change may have caused the severe drought in East Africa in 2014. Researchers are taking a closer look at the effects of climate change and have found what events they may have influenced.

"In our paper, we argue that exceptionally warm western Pacific sea surface temperatures-SSTs-contributed to East Africa's 2014 drought and that these exceptionally warm SSTs were possible only under climate change conditions," said Chris Funk, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We predicted this drought and are currently working very closely with the U.S. Agency for International Development-USAID-to monitor and quantify the ongoing dry conditions that continue to hammer many locations in Ethiopia."

The researchers created a high-quality precipitation data set for East Africa. This revealed that the region is drier than ever. In fact, it shows a disturbing decrease in spring rainfall.

Over the past 15 years, the region has been struck by eight droughts-events that have been associated with the 2011 Somali famine and increases in the frequency of extremely low birth weight children. Most of these droughts, triggered by warming, can be attributed to human activity.

"Our research suggests that anthropogenic warming in the west Pacific may be making these droughts more frequent, so that a one-in-five year drought now seems to be happening every four years or so," said Funk. "This increase in drought frequency reduces food supplies and incomes for millions of Africans, giving them less of a chance to recover and prosper, which helps feed a cycle of poverty."

The findings are published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

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