By Cell Phone, Scientists Assist African Farmers Facing Effects of Climate Change

For much of the last 200 years, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide hovered around 275 parts per million. In this century, with atmospheric carbon dioxide nearing 390 ppm, and climbing annually by about 2.5 ppm, we are already beyond what many scientists see as a critical threshold in climate change.

Farmers around the world are already feeling the impact.

In India, the worst monsoon season since 1972 threatens the 60 percent of cropland that relies on rain; many fields weren’t even planted this year. In China, a drought that started in the north in the spring (leading some to suggest moving the capital, Beijing) now extends to the central and southern portions of the nation, and is being touted as the worst in 40 years.

The same situation is repeating itself in the Middle East, with serious impacts in Iraq, parts of Turkey, Jordan and Syria as the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run dry. The Aral Sea, tapped to grow Russian cotton in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, has lost 80 percent of its water since 2006.

In Africa, nations like Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya are experiencing severe drought. Where once the rains failed every nine or 10 years, they now fail every two to three years. In Kenya’s Kamba region, where many crops have withered, residents live on a meagre government dole and try to dig wells, but a subsurface rock layer stymies them. Dying livestock add to the turmoil, forcing cattle raids within and across borders that further threaten the stability of governments and facilitate the work of rebels, who leave behind their own trail of dead and dying.

According to James Hurrell of the U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric Research and Martin Hoerling of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), these droughts, which are part of a cyclic pattern and likely to intensify, are directly related to excessive greenhouse gas emissions.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen in December doesn’t look like an answer; too few of the major greenhouse gas-emitting nations are willing to slash emissions for fear it will hurt their economies.

That leaves farmers in many countries struggling to adapt. To help, some dedicated scientists and researchers in Africa are using technology, specifically cell phones, in an effort to ensure the crops planted will best meet the challenges of climate change.

One project, the Weather Info for All Initiative, will install up to 5,000 Automatic Weather Stations at wireless network sites across Africa.

The joint effort by the UN World Meteorological Organisation, the Global Humanitarian Forum and the Earth Institute at Columbia University is aided by telecoms Ericcson and Zain. It will collect, analyze and disseminate site-specific weather forecasts and early warnings to rural African farmers, fisherman and livestock handlers, presumably via SMS, or texting.