Abstract ID: 3.11497 | Accepted as Poster | Poster | TBA | TBA

Assessing the impacts of limiting the Global Warming Level (GWL) of 1.5°C or 2°C is crucial for strengthening adaptation to climate change in Central Africa. This study uses an ensemble-mean of the state-of-the-art global climate models from Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) initiative, to appraise changes in extreme precipitation events and population exposure risks under these GWL thresholds. To accomplish that, we consider extreme precipitation indices defined by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices to capture the response of future changes in mean, duration and intense precipitation, under an additional increased warming of 0.5°C following two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5). Furthermore, the projected population datasets over the 21st century under the SSPs scenarios are also incorporated. The results reveal that for an additional increased warming of 0.5°C, the dry spells duration would significantly increase by up to 10% over countries such as Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and Zambia, whatever the considered scenario. In addition, the intense precipitation amounts, which often contributes to the emergence of severe floods are expected to significantly increase by up to 25% over the northern part of the domain, with a greater spatial extent projected when the GWL reaches 2°C under the SSP5-8.5 scenario. The result also showed that limiting GWL to 1.5°C compared to 2°C would significantly contribute to avoid 50-100 million person-mm/year living in countries such as Nigeria, Cameroon, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, and Uganda being exposed to extremely wet weather conditions. Moreover, increased population growth has been identified as the main driver contributing to amplifying these changes. The insights of this study, which provides a quantitative estimation on the population exposure risks to climate extremes events in the context of the Paris Agreement objectives, could assist the subregion’s policy-makers to target more effectively the adaptation strategies to be implemented at national and local levels.