Congo Basin warming confirmed by rescued records
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Scientists digitised thousands of handwritten weather records from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Belgium to reveal a clear warming trend in the Congo Basin.
The records, spanning 1908 to 2023, came from archives and included over one million observations across 9,000 pages. Researchers undertook this work because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had not previously tracked long-term changes in extreme weather in this region due to a lack of available data.
Between 1961 and 1990, the average daily temperature in the Congo Basin increased by approximately 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, and the number of hot days each year almost doubled. The analysis, published in Earth System Dynamics, also showed an increase in extreme heat and heavy rainfall. This newly digitised data joins other rescued climate data, creating one of the largest climate datasets for the Congo Basin.
Scientists believe this comprehensive data will improve future climate change projections and highlight the need for similar data rescue projects in regions of the Global South, particularly in Africa where limited weather stations hinder accurate forecasting and impact assessments. The team noted the fragility of the original paper records, with recent fire damage threatening decades of irreplaceable information.
