Global warming has been attributed to the greenhouse effect. Over the last fifty years temperatures of the northern and southern hemispheres have been rising as a result of green house gas emissions, Geologists Professor Maarten de Wit and Jacek Stankiewicz from Cape Town University have said.

There is increased precipitation levels, increased cloud cover and water vapour concentrations, as a result of effect of the temperature. This results in much rain in some areas and dry spells in others.

Dr. Hanna Reid, Senior Researcher for Climate Change Group, International Institute for Environment and Development said in an interview the poor people are the ones that are much affected by the floods saying they have the lowest ability to cope with the floods.
The Researcher therefore urged Governments in the region to make sure efforts made towards dealing with floods are focused on the poorest people.

Worse things are yet to come. According to Professor Maarten de Wit and Jacek Stankiewicz supplies of water could be significantly be depleted by climatic change by the 21st century.

They say small reductions in rain would affect the rivers saying most of the rivers would dry up.

The scientists compared 21 of what they consider to be the best climate change models developed by research teams around the world. On average, the models forecast a 10 to 20 percent drop in rainfall in Northwestern and Southern Africa by 2070.
With a twenty percent decrease, Cape Town would have forty two percent of river water, and Botswana , where there is Kalahari Desert, would completely dry up.
The geologists predict that the water in North Africa would decrease by Fifty percent.
They say this is a wake up call for governments to start planning to avoid panicking when such disasters start happening.
He said there is nothing much that can be done about the effects of global warming right now saying in the future scientists will test out geo-engineering schemes that might counter the expected changes ,among others.

"Some scientists think in all seriousness that we might fertilise the oceans to stimulate rapid plankton blooms that in turn would use up atmospheric carbon dioxide and take it out of the system," he said.

Professor Maarten said other scientists think they might spray sulphur particles high up in the atmosphere to increase albedo and in that way cool the earth.

"These are pipe dreams at the moment, but they might come true in the future," he said in an e-mail interview.

He said at present, the best thing for people is to learn how to preserve things better and to look after what we have with more care.

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