Cape Town: After a long hiatus, the El Niño climate system is on its way back. This hot dame could bring record heat – and possibly drought – to the Western Cape from the second half of this year.
While Cape Town never actually reached Day Zero five years ago, brought on by a three-year record drought, it raised serious water security questions.
While South Africa’s overall climate trend is currently shifting to a neutral phase, meteorologists expect the country’s weather to morph into an El Niño phase by mid-year.
It’s climatological cousin La Niña has been in place for nearly three years, bringing cooler, inclement weather.
An El Niño occurs when warm water in the equatorial Pacific shifts, creating an immense warm zone in the central and eastern Pacific. This adds heat and moisture to the air.
Meteorologist Professor Kobus Botha said El Niño would make landfall in June.
“This will bring about a below-average rainfall. One should remember that the Western Cape’s rainfall comes in the winter, so it can be problematic,” said Botha.
Climate change and energy expert Nick Hedley said regions that were already prone to drought, including Cape Town, need to have solid drought preparation plans in place.
Cape Town experienced below-average rainfall during the hydrological year, and dam levels were now at 62% of capacity – almost 25% lower than this time last year.
Siseko Mbandezi, the City’s acting Mayco member for water and sanitation, said Capetonians could help by reducing outdoor water use, such as watering gardens and filling or topping up pools, and by following the permanent water use regulations.
While the City is not in a Day Zero scenario, Mbanzezi said water restrictions would need to be considered if Cape Town experiences a similar rainfall pattern to what was experienced in 2022, one of the 10 lowest rainfall years in the last 100 years.
Hedley added: “They should also be taking steps to protect vulnerable communities from heatwaves.
“It's very possible that we will see record heat from late 2023 as El Niño kicks back in. And next year could be the year that most people wake up to the severity of the climate crisis.”
The debate over climate change, however, brings additional significance to this round of El Niño, which increased the possibility that the planet will temporarily exceed the 1.5°C warming safety limit envisaged by the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change which maps out a global framework to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
DA MP and climate change expert Traverse Le Goff told Weekend Argus that “we are in for a tough time”.
“The meteorological analysis I have seen from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and Met Office in the UK indicate that La Niña is just about done, which meant there has been some some areas which were observed that effectively were insulated and which got some respite actually from the global warming trend,” said Le Goff.
“Since climate change effectively pushes the meteorological phenomena which happens normally well past its naturally occurring range, we are in for a tough time by the looks of it.”
Le Goff added that government was dragging its feet to address the impact of climate change.
The draft Climate Change Bill was first published in June 2018 by then Minister of Environmental Affairs Dr Edna Molewa. But five years later, and despite the high level of urgency, there’s still no suitable legislation. And this, Le Goff said, was not on.
“Until we have this bill in place we are barely in the fight,” said Le Goff, adding that he would address this in the National Assembly.
“I am unapologetic about it. Anyone who encounters me should definitely expect it,“ said Le Goff.
“I have done so in the past when I was a private citizen, I did exactly this when I was a councillor in the City of Cape Town, and I am doing precisely that in the National Assembly.”
According to WMO, the El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a major influence on climate patterns in various parts of the world.
“This naturally occurring phenomenon involves fluctuating ocean temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial pacific, coupled with changes in the atmosphere,” said the WMO.
“Scientific progress on the understanding and modelling of this phenomenon has improved prediction skills to within a range of one to nine months in advance, giving society the opportunity to prepare for associated hazards such as heavy rains, floods and drought.”
Eskom said it’s also doing its part in combating the climate crisis.
“In order to decarbonise the economy over a reasonable time frame, we need to accelerate the rollout of the transmission grid to enable more renewables to be added sooner,” outgoing Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter told Weekend Argus.
“Eskom’s modelling shows that while we can substantially increase the contribution from wind and solar, we also need to invest in additional storage, particularly pumped hydro storage. The transition will be a gradual one, and South Africa will remain a significant consumer of coal for an extended period of time – at least the next two decades. The system will also require some natural gas, and Eskom is trying to pursue projects in this regard.”
South Africa, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, recently secured funding to the tune of $497 million (about R9 billion) from the World Bank to finance the Komati power station’s transition to renewable energy.
Of this amount, $47.5 million is from the Canadian Clean Energy and Forest Climate Facility. This project aims to reduce greenhouse gases and create economic opportunities.
Weekend Argus