Viewpoint: Climate change - there is no need for concern

Abstract

VIEWPOINT: CLIMATE CHANGE I n the 1940s DF Kokot, a civil engineer in the then Department of Irrigation undertook a comprehensive study to determine whether or not there had been recent climatic changes that could have had an effect on rainfall and river flow. The results of his study were published in 1948 in a 160-page Irrigation Department memoir titled An Investigation into Evidence Bearing on Recent Climatic Changes over Southern Africa. It contained 418 references, including reports by early travellers and missionaries. He discounted many of the theories that had been advanced for climate changes. He noted for example, that an elaborate theory had been built up to connect known climatic changes with assumed changes in the percentage of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, but he remained sceptical. His final conclusion was: The rainfall record is too short to be of much value in disclosing rainfall trends. It shows, however, that if we take South Africa as a whole there is little evidence of any change.

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