Advances in annual weather forecasting could be more fully exploited to improve decisions on the delivery of humanitarian aid in Africa, both now and under future climate change, according to scientists speaking on the second day of a Royal Society discussion meeting in London today (Wednesday 27 April 2005).

This two-day international meeting entitled “Food Crops in a Changing Climate” is bringing together world-class scientists in the fields of meteorology, climate science and agriculture, to discuss the impacts of a changing climate on the productivity of staple food crops, grown throughout the world. The second day, on 27 April, will focus on tropical countries where most of the world’s food is grown and where people are most vulnerable to climate change.

Dr Menghestab Haile, UN World Food Programme, said: “Current understanding of seasonal forecasting and weather monitoring in Africa can now reliably tell us whether annual crops are likely to fail before it happens. Tragically, networks for making decisions about how to minimise the negative impacts of weather-induced food shortages are not taking advantage of this valuable information. Predictions of probable crop failure would allow the delivery of timely humanitarian aid before a crisis has arisen. This is most important in allowing farmers to retain their assets in a bad year and leads to a more sustainable long-term approach.”

Africa is consistently predicted to be among the worst hit areas across a range of future climate change scenarios and new data presented at the conference suggest that some seriously damaging trends in the weather are already occurring.

Dr James Verdin, US Geological Survey, Famine Early Warning System, said: “Our monitoring of the weather in East Africa, particularly Ethiopia, shows a steep decline in levels of rainfall in the first part of the growing season over the last ten years. We have also noted increasing surface temperatures in the neighbouring Indian Ocean which appear to be associated with this drop in rainfall. If these trends continue farmers wanting to grow crops successfully in these regions will need to consider shifting from growing increasingly vulnerable long-cycle crops such as maize, to growing short-cycle crops such as barley. This means that higher-yielding, short-cycle crops must be developed and effective programmes developed to introduce them to the farmers.”

Dr Verdin continued: “In addition, we need to put the future of this type of monitoring in the hands of the African scientists. At present they have the knowledge and, more importantly, local expertise to carry out the work, but are lacking the technology required. Resources need to be found to change this if we are to build up an accurate and reliable picture of the current and future climate of Africa, in order to mitigate as many of the predicted problems as possible.”

A report from this meeting will be made available to inform discussions at the G8 summit meeting at Gleneagles in July, with particular reference to food security in Africa.

Original press release: Weather Forecasting Can Improve Delivery of Humanitarian Aid (Royal Society)