Global warming of 2°C would lead to about 230 billion tonnes of carbon being released from the world’s soil, new research suggests.

Let’s be clear: the acute water challenges that plague South Africa are probably going to be with us for a long time. On 26 October 2020, the World Meteorological Organisation released its “State of the Climate Report in Africa 2019” that lays bare the dire situation of multi-year droughts and acceleration of further extreme weather events in Africa.

Humanity faces increasingly painful trade-offs between food security and rising temperatures within decades unless emissions are curbed and unsustainable farming and deforestation halted, a landmark climate assessment said Thursday.

Temperatures in Africa have increased over 1º Celsius compared to the average between 1901 and 2012, and warming in large areas of the continent may exceed 2ºC from pre-industrial times by 2080 to 2100 if emissions continue at their current levels, according to the report released on Monday and coordinated by the WMO.

The planet has been warming and it has been the surface of our oceans that has absorbed much of the excess temperature in the atmosphere.

Most of South Africa's seasonal rainfall occurs during the warmer summer months, from October to March.