Abstract
Global climate is changing and this is apparent across the Nile basin countries in a wide range of observations. The global warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human activities, climate change is already affecting the Nile basin people in far-reaching ways. Certain types of extreme weather events with links to climate change have become more frequent and/or intense, including prolonged periods of heat, heavy downpours, and, in some regions, floods and droughts. In addition, warming is causing sea level to rise and oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb carbon dioxide. These and other aspects of climate change are disrupting people’s lives and damaging some sectors of our economy. So this chapter presents the climate changes and variability all over the basin and sub-basins. It structures around historical climatology and hydrology of Nile basin, variability of Nile climate, in addition to the Impacts of Climate Change on Growth and Development.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Abbreviations
- AOGCM:
-
Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model
- AR4:
-
Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007)
- AR5:
-
Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- CERAL:
-
Climate and Environment Risk Assessments Laboratory
- ECRI:
-
Environment and Climate Change Research Institute
- DCF:
-
Delta change factor
- ENSO:
-
El Niño Southern oscillation
- ENTRO:
-
Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office
- GCM:
-
Global Circulation Model
- GPCC:
-
Global Precipitation Climatology Center
- IPCC:
-
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- ITCZ:
-
Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone
- IOD:
-
Indian Ocean Dipole
- IOZM:
-
Indian Ocean Zonal Mode
- NBI:
-
Nile basin initiative
- NCAR:
-
National Center for Atmospheric Research
- NFS:
-
Nile Forecast System
- NWRC:
-
National Water Resources Center
- RACMO:
-
Regional Atmospheric Climate Model
- RCM:
-
Regional Climate Model
- RCPs:
-
Representative Concentration Pass Ways
- SOI:
-
Southern Oscillation Index
- SRES:
-
Special Report on Emissions Scenarios
- SAR:
-
Second Assessment Report
- SST:
-
Sea Surface Temperature
- TAR:
-
Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001)
References
Strzepek K, McCluskey A (2007) The impacts of climate change on regional water resources and agriculture in Africa. Policy research working paper series. The World Bank, 62p
ENTRO (2006) One-system inventory report no. 125. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Eastern Nile Technical Region Office
Conway D, Mould C, Bewket W (2004) Over one century of rainfall and temperature observations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Int J Climatol 24(1):77
Conway D (2000) The climate and hydrology of the upper blue Nile River. Geogr J 166(1):49
Messerli B, Winiger M (1980) The Saharan and East African uplands during the Quaternary. In: Williams MAJ, H Faure (eds) The Sahara and the Nile. A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, p 87
Williams MAJ, Faure H (1980) The Sahara and the Nile. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam
Williams MAJ, Adamson DA (1981) A land between two Niles. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam
Gillespie R, Street-Perrott AF, Switsur R (1983) Post-glacial and glacial episodes in Ethiopia have implications for climate prediction. Nature 306:680
Street-Perrott AF (1982) Twentieth century fluctuations in lake level in the Ziway-Shala Basin, Ethiopia. Palaeoecol Afr 14:99
Nicholson S (1996) A review of climate dynamics and climate variability in Eastern Africa. In: Johnson TC, Odada EO (eds) The limnology, climatology and paleoclimatology of the East African lakes. Gordon and Breach Publishers, Amsterdam, pp. 25–56
Hurst HE (1952) The Nile: a general account of the river and the utilization of its waters. Constable Publishers, London
Nicholson S (2000) The nature of rainfall variability over Africa on time scales of decades to millennia. Global Planet Change 26(1):137
Mohamed Y, Hurk BVD, Savenije H (2005) Hydro climatology of the Nile: results from a regional climate model. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci Discuss 2:319
Roskar J (2000) Assessing the water resources potential of the Nile River based on data, available at the Nile forecasting center in Cairo. Hydrometeorological Institute of Slovenia, Ljubljana, 50p
Shahin M (1985) Hydrology of the Nile Basin. Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam
Sutcliffe JV, Parks YP (1999) The Hydrology of the Nile. International Association of Hydrological Sciences, Oxford Shire
TAMS/ULG (1997) Baro-Akobo River Basin integrated development master plan study. Final Report, Vol. I Executive summary, Submitted to Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Ministry of Water Resources
Mohamed Y, Bastiaanssen W, Savenije H (2004) Spatial variability of evaporation and moisture storage in the swamps of the upper Nile studied by remote sensing techniques. J Hydrol (Amsterdam) 289(1/4):145
Kiage LM, Liu K (2006) Late quaternary paleoenvironmental changes in East Africa: a review of multi proxy evidence from palynology, lake sediments, and associated records. Prog Phys Geogr 30(5):633–658
Sun L, Semazzi F, Giorgi F (1999) Application of the NCAR regional climate model to Eastern Africa. Part I: simulations of autumn rains of 1988. J Geophys Res 104:6529
Hastenrath S (2001) Variations of East African climate during the past two centuries. Clim Change 50(1):209
Nicholson S, Yin X (2001) Rainfall conditions in Equatorial East Africa during the nineteenth century as inferred from the record of Lake Victoria. Clim Change 48(2):387
Mohamed Y, Savenije H, Bastiaanssen W (2005) New lessons on the Sudd hydrology learned from remote sensing and climate modeling. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci Discuss 2:1503
Davies H, Walsh R (1997) Historical changes in the flood hazard at Khartoum, Sudan: lessons and warnings for the future. Singap J Trop Geogr 18(2):123
Grove, A. (1972) Climatic change in Africa in the last 20000 years. Les Problems de Development du Sahara Septentrional (Development Problems of Northern Sahara, in French)
Hastenrath S, Kutzbach J (1983) Paleoclimatic estimates from water and energy budgets of East African lakes. Q Res 19:141–153
Nicholson S (2001) Climatic and environmental change in Africa during the last two centuries. Clim Res 17(2):123
Goddard L, Graham NE (1999) Importance of the Indian Ocean for simulating rainfall anomalies over eastern and Southern Africa. J Geophys Res 104:19099
Indeje M, Semazzi HFM, Ogallo LJ (2000) ENSO signals in East African rainfall seasons. Int J Climatol 20(1):19
Korecha D, Barnston A (2007) Predictability of June–September rainfall in Ethiopia. Mon Weather Rev 135(2):628
Mutai CC, Ward MN, Colman AW (1998) Towards the prediction of the East Africa short rains based on sea-surface temperature-atmosphere coupling. Int J Climatol 18(9):975
Yu LS, Rienecker MM (1999) Mechanisms for the Indian Ocean warming during the 1997–1998 El Niño. Geophys Res Lett 26:735
Clark CO, Webster PJ, Cole JE (2003) Interdecadal variability of the relationship between the Indian Ocean zonal mode and east African coastal rainfall anomalies. J Clim 16:548
Camberlin P (1995) June-September rainfall in north-eastern Africa and atmospheric signals over the tropics: a zonal perspective. Int J Climatol 15(7):773
Camberlin P (1997) Rainfall anomalies in the source region of the Nile and their connection with the Indian summer monsoon. J Clim 10(6):1380
Camberlin P, Janicot S, Poccard I (2001) Seasonality and atmospheric dynamics of the teleconnection between African rainfall and tropical sea-surface temperature: Atlantic vs. ENSO. Int J Climatol 21(8):973
Schreck CJI, Semazzi FHM (2004) Variability of the recent climate of eastern Africa. Int J Climatol 24(6):681
Nicholson SE, Selato JC (2000) The influence of La Nina on African rainfall. Int J Climatol 20(14):1761
Marchant R, Mumbi C, Behera S, et al. (2007) The Indian Ocean dipole the unsung driver of climatic variability in East Africa. Afr J Ecol 45(1):4
Nyssen J, Vandenreyken H, Poesen J (2005) Rainfall erosivity and variability in the Northern Ethiopian Highlands. J Hydrol 311(1–4):172
Saji NH et al. (1999) A dipole mode in the tropical Indian Ocean. Nature 401:360
Goddard L, Mason SJ, Zebiak SE, et al. (2001) Current approaches to seasonal to interannual climate predictions. Int J Climatol 21(9):1111
Yamagata T, Behera S, Luo J, et al. (2004) Coupled ocean-atmosphere variability in the tropical Indian Ocean. In: Wang C, Xie SP, Carton JA (eds) Earth climate: the ocean–atmosphere interaction, Geophysical monograph, vol 147, pp. 189–211
Xie SP et al. (2002) Structure and mechanisms of South Indian Ocean climate variability. J Clim 15:864
Evans, T. (1990) History of Nile flows. In: Howell PP, Allan JA (eds) The Nile. School of Oriental and African Studies, Royal Geographical Society, London/Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 5–39
IPCC 2007 Climate change 2007: Synthesis report. Fourth assessment report (AR4). An assessment of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), Geneva
Collins M, Frame D, Sinha B, et al. (2002) How far ahead could we predict El Niño? Geophys Res Lett 29(10):492
Allan RP et al. (2001) Is there an equatorial Indian Ocean dipole, and is it independent of the El Niño Southern oscillation? CLIVAR Exchanges. 21 1
Webster PJ (1999) Coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics in the Indian Ocean during 1997–98. Nature 401:356
Trenberth KE et al. (2002) The evolution of ENSO and global atmospheric temperatures. J Geophys Res 107:4065
Birkett CM, Murtugudde R, Allan JA (1999) Indian Ocean climate event brings floods to East Africa’s lakes and Sudd marsh. Geophys Res Lett 26:1031
Mistry VV, Conway D (2003) Remote forcing of East African rainfall and relationships with fluctuations in levels of Lake Victoria. Int J Climatol 23(1):67
Quinn WH (1992) A study of Southern oscillation-related climatic activity for AD 622–1900 incorporating Nile River flood data. In: Diaz HF, Margrave V (eds) El Niño: historical and pale climatic aspects of the Southern oscillation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 119
Whetton P, Rutherfurd I (1994) Historical ENSO tele connections in the eastern hemisphere. Clim Change 28(3):221
Eltahir E (1996) El Niño and the natural variability in the flow of the Nile River. Water Resour Res 32(1):131
WHO (2005) Air quality guidelines; global update 2005. World Health Organization. Available: http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair_aqg/en/. Accessed 21 July 2011
Patz JA, Githeko AK, McCarty JP, Hussein S, Confalonieri U, de Wet N (2003) Climate change and infectious diseases. In: McMichael AJ, Campbell-Lendrum DH, Corvalán CF, Ebi KL, Githeko A, Scheraga JD, Woodward A (eds) Climate change and health: risks and responses. World Health Organisation, Geneva. http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/climchange.pdf
Stern Review (2006) The economic of climate change. www.sternreview.org.uk
IPCC (2007) Climate change 2007: The physical basis of climate change: contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Rosenzweig C, Parry M, Fischer G (1995) World food supply. In: Strzepek K, Smith J (eds) As climate changes: international impacts and implications. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 27
Conway D, Hulme M (1996) The impacts of climate variability and future climate change in the Nile Basin on water resources in Egypt. Int J Water Resour Dev 12(3):277
Strzepek KM, Yates D (1996) Economic and social adaptations to climate change impacts on water resources: a case study of Egypt. Int J Water Resour Dev 12(2):229
Strzepek KM, Yates DN (1996) Assessment of water resources vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. Int J Water Resour Dev 12(2):111
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Khir-Eldien, K., Zahran, S.A. (2016). Nile Basin Climate Changes Impacts and Variabilities. In: Negm, A. (eds) The Nile River. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, vol 56. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2016_116
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2016_116
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-59086-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-59088-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)