[P2P-F] Fwd: MEDIA RELEASE: Cape Town drought made 3 times more likely by climate change, scientists report - 11 January 2019

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ryan Fortune <ryan.fortune at uct.ac.za>
Date: Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 11:42 AM
Subject: MEDIA RELEASE: Cape Town drought made 3 times more likely by
climate change, scientists report - 11 January 2019
To: Ryan Fortune <ryan.fortune at uct.ac.za>


<https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/about/> <http://acdi.uct.ac.za/>

*MEDIA RELEASE*

*Cape Town drought made 3 times more likely by climate change, scientists
report*

*Cape Town, 11 January 2019* – Man-made climate change and its effect on
rainfall made the drought in South Africa’s Western Cape province over the
past few years about three times more likely, according to the latest study
by a group of international climate scientists.

Working under the auspices of World Weather Attribution (WWA)
<https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/>, the scientists report that all
the climate models used in their study show the likelihood of droughts like
the current one going back to 2015, although still very rare, will increase
with further warming.

The team looked at data for the Western Cape region which contains the dams
and reservoirs providing water for Cape Town and surrounding farmland.

The main factor behind the drought and the consequent water shortage was
below-average rainfall rather than surface evaporation caused by high
atmospheric temperatures.

“This drought is still a rare event in the current climate, but our results
suggest the risk is changing and that it’s important to improve resilience
to drought,” said Piotr Wolski <http://www.csag.uct.ac.za/author/pwolski/>,
a researcher at the University of Cape Town, co-author of the
study. “People’s taps did not run dry and the feared ‘Day Zero’ emergency
has been narrowly averted for the moment, due to public’s adherence to
water restrictions and at the cost of switching off supplies for
irrigation. But this was clearly not a sustainable solution.”

Friederike Otto <https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/people/fotto.html>, lead-author
of the study and acting director at the Environmental Change Institute at
Oxford University, adds: “These results and the generally increased
likelihood of drought is in line with our general understanding of what
climate change means for semi-arid regions like Southern Africa; preparing
for more of the same would be wise.”

Studies cited by the WWA group say the Western Cape drought was the worst
almost since the beginning of the 20th century.

The dams that supply Cape Town are entirely dependent on rainfall, making
the system vulnerable to climatic variability and change, although it’s
designed to cope with droughts that might occur once every 50 years on
average.

Overall, the current crisis was found to be a 1-in-150-year event for the
Western Cape Region, but – the team believe – more acute local variations
particularly affecting the dams’ actual catchment areas could make this at
least a 1-in-300 year event for the municipal water supply.

Last year some 33,000 seasonal farm-labourers lost work because of the
drought.

"Cape Town’s drought teaches us that climate change is not a thing of a
distant future: it's happening already and impacts us today," says Professor
Mark New <http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/acdi/core-team/professor-mark-new>,
director of the African Climate & Development Initiative
<http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za> (ACDI) at the University of Cape Town. "We are
running out of time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and more
importantly, we can no longer postpone taking precautionary and adaptive
actions."

*Read the full paper **here*
<http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aae9f9/meta>*.*

*Find the technical summary **here*
<https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/analyses/the-role-of-climate-change-in-the-2015-2017-drought-in-the-western-cape-of-south-africa/>
*.*

-         *Ends – *

*FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO BOOK INTERVIEWS: *

Ryan Fortune

Strategic Communications Manager

African Climate & Development Initiative (ACDI)

+27 (0)21-650-3434

+27 (0)72-202-5629

ryan.fortune at uct.ac.za



About the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI)
<http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/acdi/about-us>

*The African Climate & Development Initiative (ACDI) is the University of
Cape Town’s collective response to the challenge of climate change in the
context of sustainable development in Africa. *ACDI is an inter- and
transdisciplinary research and training Institute that brings together
academics across UCT and beyond, NGOs, business, civil society and
government to co-produce and test new insights, evidence and innovations
that will help to solve Africa's climate and development challenges.

About World Weather Attribution (WWA)
<https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/about/>

World Weather Attribution (WWA) is an international effort to analyse and
communicate the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather
events, such as storms, extreme rainfall, heatwaves, cold spells, and
droughts. Recognising society’s interest in reducing the human, economic,
and environmental costs of weather-related disasters, WWA delivers timely
and scientifically reliable information on how extreme weather may be
affected by climate change. WWA was initiated in late 2014 after the
scientific community concluded that the emerging science of extreme event
attribution could be operationalised.
Disclaimer - University of Cape Town This email is subject to UCT policies
and email disclaimer published on our website at
http://www.uct.ac.za/main/email-disclaimer or obtainable from +27 21 650
9111. If this email is not related to the business of UCT, it is sent by
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abuse via https://csirt.uct.ac.za/page/report-an-incident.php.


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