Climate modelling by the CSIR has suggested that Johannesburg will experience hot days - those of over 27C - from 140 to 170 times a year. According to CSIR atmosphere scientist Rebecca Garland, currently the city has between 30 and 40 hot days a year. "What you will be getting is more and more consecutive hot days," said Garland.
The climate in the Johannesburg of the future is going to be similar to that of southern Botswana today. Other recent research backs up the CSIR findings.
Scientists who published their findings in the journal Environmental Research Letters warned that across Africa heat waves that are today considered unusual could become a normal occurrence within the next two decades. "Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents for climate change and even a modest rise in the average global temperature could have severe consequences for people living there," said Jana Sillmann, of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, one of the authors of the study.
They warned that this could have a detrimental effect on human life expectancy, and on animal and crop production. "Even if precipitation increases, the heat will make the soil drier," said Garland.
But Johan Willemse, a professor in the department of agriculture at the University of the Free State, cautioned that these were "merely predictions". He said that if farmers were to survive increases in temperature they would have to rely more on technology and use cultivars developed to cope with drier conditions.
"Subsistence farmers stand to lose the most, as the big commercial farmers can equip themselves with new technologies to survive."
Source: The Times
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