Climate change and variability: a review of what is known and ought to be known for Uganda

• Pages: 752-771
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-04-2017-0090
• Published date: 19 November 2018
• Date: 19 November 2018
• Author: Francis Wasswa Nsubuga,Hannes Rautenbach
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Environmental issues,Climate change

Climate change and variability: a

review of what is known and ought

to be known for Uganda

Francis Wasswa Nsubuga

Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology,

University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa, and

Hannes Rautenbach

South African Weather Service, Pretoria, South Africa and

School of Health Systems and Public Health, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

Purpose –In view of the consensus that climate change is happening, scientists have documented

several f‌indings about Uganda’s recent climate, as well as its variability and change. The purpose of this

study is to review what has been documented, thus it gives an overview of what is known and seeks to

explain the implications of a changing climate, hence what ought to be known to create a climate resilient

environment.

Design/methodology/approach –Terms such as “climate”,“climatechange”and “climate variability”

were identif‌iedin recent peer-reviewed published literature to f‌ind recentclimate-related literature on Uganda.

Findings from independent researchers and consultants are incorporated. Data obtained from rainfall and

temperature observations and from COSMO-CLM Regional Climate Model-Coordinated Regional Climate

Downscaling Experiment (CCLM CORDEX) data, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

(ECMWF) Interim Re-Analysis(ERA-Interim) data and Global Precipitation ClimatologyCentre (GPCC) have

been used to generate spatial maps, seasonal outputs and projections using GrADS 2.02 and Geographic

InformationSystem (GIS) software for visualization.

Findings –The climate of Uganda is tropical in nature and inf‌luenced by the Inter-Tropical

Convergence Zone (ITCZ), varied relief, geo-location and inland lakes, among other factors. The impacts

of severe weather and climate trends and variability have been documented substantially in the past 20-

30 years. Most studies indicated a rainfall decline. Daily maximum and minimum temperatures are on

the rise, while projections indicate a decrease in rainfall and increase in temperature both in the near and

far future. The implication of these changes on society and the economy are discussed herein. Cost of

inaction is expected to become huge, given factors like, the growing rate of the population and the slow

expanding economy experienced in Uganda. Varied forms of adaptation to the impacts of climate

change are being implemented, especially in the agricultural sector and at house hold level, though not

systematically.

Originality/value –This review of scientif‌icresearch f‌indings aims to create a better understandingof the

recent climatechange and variability in Uganda and providesa baseline of summarized information foruse in

future researchand actions.

Keywords Uganda, Climate projections, Recent climate, Representative concentration pathways

Paper type Literature review

© Francis Wasswa Nsubuga and Hannes Rautenbach. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may

reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial &

non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full

terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

IJCCSM

10,5

752

Received18 April 2017

Revised25 July 2017

3 November2017

6 December2017

Accepted17 December 2017

InternationalJournal of Climate

ChangeStrategies and

Management

Vol.10 No. 5, 2018

pp. 752-771

EmeraldPublishing Limited

1756-8692

DOI 10.1108/IJCCSM-04-2017-0090

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/1756-8692.htm

Introduction

Uganda is a landlockedcountry situated in the eastern part of Africa (Nsubuga et al.,2014c).

It covers an area of nearly 241,548 km

2

, comprising 0.8 per cent of the total geographical

area of the continent. Geographicallythe country is located between 1°300S-4°N latitude and

29°300E-34°E longitude, hence existingastride the Equator, making it more Equatorial than

neighbouring countries. Studies for Uganda to detect changes in climate, especially with

regard to the two parameters of rainfall and temperature; have been going on within the

country, as well as in other parts of the world. The characteristics of climate and the impact

of climate change in Uganda show similaritiesto other regional, national and global studies

documented. Regional studies for Africa (such as those by Aguilar et al., 2005;New et al.,

2006;Hulme et al., 2001;Domroes and El-Tantawi,2005) contextualize what has been found

for the Uganda.

Considerable work has been done at a national level (Anyah and Semazzi, 2004;Osbahr

et al., 2011;Nsubuga et al., 2011,2014a,2014b,2014c,2015;Bomuhangi et al., 2016), which

has revealed various climatic changes in Uganda. The present work attempts to review

various works in peer-reviewed articles and other forms of publication which have

documented climate change in Uganda. Hence forms a basic framework for further

investigation of climatechange in Uganda. It highlights what we might expect the climate to

be like in future under different climate change scenarios and the associated impacts that

ought to be known are also discussed. Hopefully, the information presented in this study

will provide a basis for futureaction.

Methodology

This study reviews recent publications that document climate change in Uganda. It

concentrates on recent literature publishedin times when the climate signal has intensif‌ied.

Recent literature is also based on new scientif‌ic evidence and better climate change

projections than havebeen available in the past. The review used word search for terms like

climate,climate variabilityand climate change in Uganda. Such terms were found not only in

peer-reviewed literature but also in published work of independent researchers and in

consultants’reports. Secondly, the study linked references in classic articles and book

chapters on the topic of climate change. However, oursearch was not expected to provide a

comprehensive picture of climate change because of the limited research being undertaken

in Uganda and lack of continuous climatic data. Thus, authors integrated iterative

approaches of data analysis to visualize results. Observational data ref‌lecting hydro-

climatic conditions collectedfrom 36 stations have been used to construct an overall picture

of the mean monthly rainfall distribution. In addition, data obtained from the Global

Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) and from the European Centre for Medium Range

Weather Forecasting Re-analysis Data (ECMWF) respectively were used for rainfall and

temperature observations, in order to produce seasonal outputs. For climate change

projections, average of data from an ensemble of four models of the Consortium for Small-

scale Modelling Climate Mode (COSMO) and data from the Climate Limited-area Model

(CLM), as well as simulations from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling

Experiment (CORDEX)initiative were used. Spatial maps were generated using GrADS and

GIS software.

Mechanisms that af‌fect Uganda’s climate variability

A sound observational basis with a detailed description of the mechanisms thatgovern the

space and time characteristics of rainfall and temperatures over Eastern Africa, where

Uganda is located, can be constructed from information provided in a number of articles

Climate

change and

variability

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