El Niño, La Niña, and other climate drivers: their impacts on East and Southern Africa
Eastern and Southern African countries continue to face recurrent extreme climate events with extensive economic and social consequences, such as loss of livelihoods and humanitarian disasters. The degree of these impacts is worsed by the fact that these regions highly rely on rain-dependent socio-economic activities. Furthermore, climate variations in these regions indicate significant fluctuations on inter-annual and decadal time scales, associated with global climate drivers such as El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
This webinar will feature an overview of the ENSO, Indian Ocean Dipole, and Madden Julian Oscillation phenomena and their teleconnection with climate variability in Eastern and Southern Africa. In addition, the webinar will delve into the impact of these climate drivers on sectors such as agriculture, water,wildlife, tourism, disaster risk management, and other sectors.
Panelists
Eunice koech
Climate modeling assistant ICPACmoderator
Eunice Koech is a climate modeling assistant at IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her background is in Meteorology and has a Master of Science degree in Meteorology from the University of Nairobi. She has 5 years’ experience in forecasting and her current focus is on seasonal and sub-seasonal forecasting for the Eastern Africa region. She is keen on downscaling of climate products for the agriculture sector, thus supports in strengthening the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG), which is a regional User Interface Platform for the agriculture sector in Eastern Africa. She is also passionate about communicating climate information to users who have no background in climate science. Her interest and professional goals include being a bridge between the climate providers and users to ensure that climate information uptake and use is increased in the region.
Brenda Lazarus
Economist (Food Securitv and Early Warning) FAOdiscussant
Brenda is an economist working with FAO. She co-leads the regional Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG) and facilitates discussions, within FAO and with partners, on food security early warning systems in the East Africa region. Her recent work has included leading the production of joint early warning products about the 2021/22 drought across the Horn of Africa and supporting the development of strategic response recommendations.
Jurg Wilbrink
Disaster Risk Reduction and Forecast-based Financing Advisor IFRCdiscussant
Jurg is a humanitarian data, anticipatory action and disaster risk reduction professional with a passion for the African (climatological) context. With a background in environmental engineering and data science, he started his humanitarian journey at 510, the humanitarian data team of the Netherlands Red Cross and is currently working for the IFRC.
David Macleod
Lecturer in Climate Risk Cardiff Universitydiscussant
David MacLeod is a Lecturer in Climate Risk at Cardiff University and is an expert in climate science and predictability, working on the use of forecasts for early warning for over a decade. Alongside research and teaching, he works to support humanitarian agencies such as the Red Cross in their development of anticipatory action programmes worldwide.