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Climate Change 2016
October 27-29, 2016
Volume 7, Issue 9(Suppl) J Earth Sci Clim Change
ISSN: 2157-7617 JESCC, an open access journal
conferenceseries .com
October 24-26, 2016 Valencia, Spain
World Conference onClimate Change
Spatiotemporal variability of climate change in the free state province of South Africa
Geoffrey Mukwada, Desmond Manatsa and Mavis Mbiriri
University of the Free State, South Africa
This paper uses gridded precipitation and temperature data to determine if climate change has occurred in the Free State
Province of South Africa, in order to generate reliable information for development planning in the province. Gridded
precipitation and temperature data, as well as data on drought indices for the 1960-2013 period were extracted from Climate
Explorer and analyzed using ArcGIS (Version 10.3) and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (Version 23), as well as shift
detection software, first to ascertain if climate change has occurred in the province, and secondly to determine the spatiotemporal
characteristics of the changes (if any). Regime Shift Detection Software was used to determine epochs from data extracted from
equidistantly spaced grid points within and around the Free State Province, while Hot Spot Analysis was undertaken in an
ArcGIS environment to identify climate related spatial patterns. A comparative analysis of the resultant epochs and spatial
groupings revealed an average temperature shift of 0.6°C since 2003, while GiZ-Scores from Hot Spots Analysis indicated the
existence of five categories of regions within the province, each with its own spatiotemporal characteristics. When Principal
Component Analysis was performed on precipitation data for each epoch, the results showed a strong correlation between the
climatic conditions in the regions with ENSO. The study therefore concludes that the climate change that has occurred in the
province has been induced by exogenous forces. This reality needs to be considered when developing mitigation measures to
combat climate change related challenges in the province.
Biography
Geoffrey Mukwada completed his PhD from University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa in 2006 and completed his Post-doctoral studies at the University of the
Western Cape between 2007 and 2009, before taking up a lectureship position at the University of the Free State. He is currently the coordinator of the Afromontane
Research Unit’s research theme: Living and Doing Business in Afromontane Regions. He has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals and has been
serving as a reviewer of several journals.
Geoffrey Mukwada et al., J Earth Sci Clim Change 2016, 7:9(Suppl)