Lesotho Climate Change Projections

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Lesotho is a small mountainous country is southern Africa. Lesotho is a temperate region that has four distinct seasons; spring, summer, autumn and winter. It is among countries that are vulnerable to climate change impacts. As such, future climate projections are vital to the country. Lesotho has submitted her first and the only report (FNC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2000. The report includes vulnerability and adaptation (V&A) assessment developed using the first generation low resolution Global Climate Models (GCMs) output. This study was aimed at developing climate change scenarios using a high resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) called PRECIS which was developed by UK Met Office (UKMO). The results obtained from PRECIS are compared to FNC results and will also contribute towards the next V&A assessment. The work is unique in that it is the first study carried out to develop climate scenarios using high resolution RCM (50km grid space) which is driven by boundary data from five Physically Perturbed Ensemble (PPE) models of HadCM3 over Lesotho. In addition, changes in average annual/seasonal rainfall and temperatures as well as changes in variability of seasonal rainfall and temperatures in Lesotho are projected throughout the century (2010-2039, 2040-2069 and 2070-2099).

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Language(s): English

Tags: Climate ; Climate change ; Climate projection ; Lesotho ; Thesis - WMO Fellowship Division Add tag