DMF Team South Africa
Paper
Potential impacts of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering on droughts over major river basins in Africa – Climatic Change – Babatunde J. Abiodun, Romaric C. Odoulami, Windmanagda Sawadogo, Olumuyiwa A. Oloniyo, Abayomi A. Abatan, Mark New, Christopher Lennard, Pinto Izidine, Temitope S. Egbebiyi & Douglas G. MacMartin
Summary
Drought is intensifying across Africa, with increasingly devastating consequences for people and economies on the continent. Further climate change is projected to exacerbate this trend, triggering droughts more quickly, and making them more intense and longer-lasting.
Lead author Babatunde Abiodun, working with colleagues from the DMF project at the University of Cape Town, asked what effect solar radiation modification (SRM) might have on major river basins in Africa – and compared that to the impacts of climate change without it.
Their conclusions mark an important step forward in the understanding of a very specific impact of global warming, and how the potential use of SRM could – for better or worse – affect a highly climate-vulnerable region of the world.