HR: 1340h
AN: H23E-1176    [Abstracts]
TI: Floods and Droughts in Africa: Relation to Short-term Climate Variability
AU: * Birkett, C M
EM: cmb@nemo.gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: University of Maryland, ESSIC, Computer and Space Sciences Building, No.224, College Park, Md 20742-2465 United States
AB: The overall goal of this project is to utilize predicted sea surface temperature (SST) together with near-real time remote sensing tools, to aid in the forecast of regional drought and flood. The focus of the study is centered on the African continent for the time period ~1900-2002. There are several objectives, i) To utilize the surface status of water as a proxy indicator of precipitation and as a direct measure of hydrological drought and flood, ii) To derive this surface water status, using historical records and recent remote sensing data, for a selection of geographically distributed target sites, and to seek correlations between the data and known drought/flood episodes, iii) To examine the relationships between drought/flood episodes and short-term climate events, and iv) To deduce the vulnerability of these regions to short-term climatic events and to determine the future role of combined satellite data and predictive SST forecasts. Surface water is that defined by the level or areal status of lakes, rivers and wetlands. Here, we present results from a remote sensing survey of the continent, revealing time series of water-level variations over the 1990's decade. This has been undertaken by the application of satellite radar altimetry using the TOPEX/POSEIDON and ERS mission data. This survey contains validation results for ERS-derived elevations and a study of ERS instrument performance. Inter-comparison of these ERS and T/P results with preliminary elevation data from the ENVISAT mission is also shown. In addition, a survey of the decade's outbreaks of floods and droughts is reported and correlations between these conditions and the remote sensing observations are presented as the second stage of this multi-year project.
DE: 1800 HYDROLOGY
DE: 1812 Drought
DE: 1821 Floods
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 1640 Remote sensing
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting