Please join us for this Future Climate for Africa webinar by climate change expert Neil Hart:

What you always wanted to know about central and southern Africa’s climate - A beginner’s briefing in 15 minutes or less followed by discussion

Based on the UMFULA research team's contributions to Africa's climate: Helping decision-makers make sense of climate information

The webinar is now over but you can watch the recording here:

Climate modelling is a key tool in tackling the effects of climate change. Future Climate for Africa is a research programme that aims to generate fundamentally new climate science, and to ensure that this new science has an impact on human development across Africa. The UMFULA research team is using climate models to try and improve information about the future climate of central and southern Africa. Their aim is to provide decision-makers with the best possible scientific knowledge on how rainfall, temperatures and associated conditions like drought are likely to change in the region in the next 5-40 years. The researchers also seek to help decision-makers understand which aspects of the future climate are simply uncertain – and to explore the implications for investments in development planning and infrastructure that could endure for decades ahead.

This webinar by Neil Hart of the University of Oxford explores in brief some of the research questions that the FCFA teams are pursuing in central and Southern Africa. This webinar is not for climate specialists but for anyone who is interested in how they could be using climate change information to make more climate-resilient development decisions.

Dr Hart explains in layperson’s terms how climate models project as clear a view of the future climate as possible, but are often misunderstood or used incorrectly. He debunks some common misunderstandings about climate models. The seminar uses illustrations from what we already understand about central and southern Africa and discusses the implications for making climate-informed decisions.

Read Dr Hart and his colleagues' contribution to the report Africa's climate.