Post by marchesarosa on Nov 30, 2011 11:27:43 GMT 1
Keith on WUWT writes:
With so much focus on the emails from Climategate II, I thought I’d start to look at the ‘documents’ folder. One of interest is ‘africa.doc’, the executive summary of the IPCC Regional Impacts Special Report on Africa. It’s the final version, but what makes it interesting is that it’s a Word document with changes (such as additions, amendments and deletions) tracked. The section on regional climate begins thus:
2.2. Regional Climate
The continent of Africa is characterized by several climatic regimes and ecological zones. All parts of the continent, except the Republic of South Africa and the Mediterranean countries north of the Sahara, have tropical climates. These tropical climates may be divided into three distinct climatic zones: wet tropical climates; dry tropical climate and alternating wet and dry climates, (Huq, S. et al., 1996). Arid and sandy deserts (The Sahara and Kalahari) cover a significant portion of the total land area, (Griffith, 1989).
A complete analysis of the climate, hence climatology, of Africa is difficult to achieve due to several factors. Historically, except from the mediterranean belt and Eastern and Southern Africa, where scientific weather observations have longer and relatively consistent and homogeneous records, most meteorological stations on the continent emerged during and after the Second World War (Thomson, 1965). Despite this increase in the number of stations, the network was designed primarily for aviation purposes with little regard to agriculture and other specialised sectors. In addition, vast areas are remote, inhabitable, lack suitable accommodation, water and food for observers, close at night due to poor communications and finance of staff. Due to limited national financial resources, more often than not, the location of a weather station was determined by the existence of radio and other telecommunication facilities. Consequently, the data bases have remained relatively small and their quality highly questionable, to enable necessary climatological descriptions, on a geographical basis, to be made especially in, monitoring the climatic variability, defining the fringes of semi-arid regions bordering deserts for addressing the issue of desertification, (WMO, 1993). Direct and indirect remote sensing (radar and satellite) data are not commonly used in most of the continent, because of the prohibitive cost of the equipment.
Despite the above,Several comprehensive descriptions of the climates of Africa exist are in existence , most notably those of by Thomson (1965) and Griffiths (1972).
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We would not want the politicians knowing how scant the data are, would we?
With so much focus on the emails from Climategate II, I thought I’d start to look at the ‘documents’ folder. One of interest is ‘africa.doc’, the executive summary of the IPCC Regional Impacts Special Report on Africa. It’s the final version, but what makes it interesting is that it’s a Word document with changes (such as additions, amendments and deletions) tracked. The section on regional climate begins thus:
2.2. Regional Climate
The continent of Africa is characterized by several climatic regimes and ecological zones. All parts of the continent, except the Republic of South Africa and the Mediterranean countries north of the Sahara, have tropical climates. These tropical climates may be divided into three distinct climatic zones: wet tropical climates; dry tropical climate and alternating wet and dry climates, (Huq, S. et al., 1996). Arid and sandy deserts (The Sahara and Kalahari) cover a significant portion of the total land area, (Griffith, 1989).
Despite the above,
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We would not want the politicians knowing how scant the data are, would we?