NAIROBI, (AlertNet) Â? Climate change is expected to bring greater extremes in weather conditions, but climate models disagree about which problems - droughts, flooding, temperature increases - are most likely in much of northern, central and western Africa.
In east Africa, however, the models largely agree: dry areas will suffer more prolonged droughts and wet areas will see increased moisture and perhaps worsening flooding.
"For east Africa, there is more agreement between the models that it is more likely that dry areas will get drier while the wet areas will get wetter,Â? Philip Thornton, a senior scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute, told AlertNet in an interview.
Thornton is among scientists and food expects attending a conference in Nairobi focused on the threat of climate change to the global food supply.
The expected changes are hardly news in Kenya, which last year suffered through a fifth continuous year of drought before the country was inundated with flooding early this year.
Last year's drought drove more than 23 million east Africans in seven countries toward severe hunger and destitution, wiping out livestock herds. Desperate pastoralists brought their herds into Nairobi in search of grass on the roadsides and a government program that allowed herders to sell their animals for slaughter was overwhelmed with animals. Rivers dried out in many parts of East Africa and the Horn of Africa, and the government was forced to buy hay for wildlife in Kenya's famed game parks.
This year, the country has been hit by unusually intense rainfall that has resulted in flooding. Climate experts say that as temperatures rise, rainfall is becoming less predictable, falling over shorter periods but in a more violent way. Unusual weather events - including storms, drier spells and fluctuating temperatures - are happening more often, they say.
Thornton said farmers in a country like Kenya, which is partly semi-arid, are likely to be hard hit by erratic rainfall and that long dry spells may result in forced migration to greener areas.
"For people in agro-pastoral zones, it is likely that crop production will become increasingly difficult because of the variability associated with changing climate," he said.
Human rights groups say the increasingly severe weather, which has dramatically cut the country's livestock herds, is driving unwanted social change as well, including pastoralists giving away their young daughters for early marriage in exchange for dowry payments that allow them to rebuild their decimated herds.
However, increasing temperatures may benefit farmers in the region's tropical highlands, where current low temperatures limit the planting of some food crops.
"As the temperatures increase, we are likely to have opportunity for smallholders to grow crops in a more stable fashion," he said.
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