WEBVTT - Africa's climate reparations require data that doesn't exist 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:05.439 Welcome to zero. I'm Akshatrati this week weather data, volcanic 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:22.280 skies and conflict in Timbuctu. Here in the UK, chatting 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:26.159 about the weather is basically national pastime. When is it 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:28.760 going to rain? When will we see the sun again? 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.920 And why have we gone through all four seasons? Before lunch? 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.280 And thanks to weather forecasting we can have those conversations 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.080 not just with good humor but also a good level 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:44.120 of confidence. We get these forecasts because the UK has 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.879 a network of more than four hundred weather stations spanning 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.440 the length of the country, from the Orkney Islands in 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.000 the far north to the Scilly Isles in the south. 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.520 The data the weather stations like these collect are invaluable. 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.160 It influences the decisions of governments and companies around the 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.840 world and can be used to make models that predict 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.360 energy consumption, harvests, and even when countries might go to war. 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:12.319 As my colleague at Bloombergrain, Laura Milan puts it, what 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.400 they do is really important because these data fits then 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.039 into all these climate models, into the research that climate 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.600 sciences do to try to figure out how the world 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.640 works today, and these is the data key to figure 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.800 out how it will change in the future. When it 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.560 comes to making climate models, the more data you have 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.440 and the longer you've been collecting it for the better 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.520 those models become. But weather stations are also expensive to 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:42.039 set up and maintain, and many countries can't afford them 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:46.000 in great numbers. Without these stations, it becomes difficult to 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.960 provide accurate weather forecasts and makes it even harder to 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.160 work out how a country will be affected by climate change. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.400 And while the UK benefits from an abundance of weather stations, 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.160 many countries in Africa are severely lack the resources to 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:06.360 produce reliable weather and climate data. This week, Laura tells 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.200 the story of weather Station six one two to three 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.600 in Timbec two and what its sudden closure means for 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.480 the people of Mali and climate science across the African continent. 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.639 The story starts with the Arab Spring, which sparked revolutions 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.960 across North Africa, and ends with how the lack of 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:35.920 African weather data will affect the discussions at COP twenty seven. Laura, 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.200 welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you for having 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.280 me tell me about weather Station six one two to three. 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.640 Weather Station six one two to three was one of 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.760 five weather stations in Mali that had been active for 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.200 more than one hundred years. And these stations that have 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.519 been operating for more than a hundred years, they're really 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.400 valuable because the data that they provide is very consistence 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.840 for a time. This station, in particular world was close 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.359 to the airport in Timbukto. It was set up by 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:09.520 the French colonialists and it was in a very discret building, 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:13.280 concrete building near the airport, so you know, no signs, 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.919 know anything. One could have confused it with a warehouse 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.040 or something like that. When I think of Timbuctoo, the 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:30.240 thing that comes to mind is how Bollywood treats at Hullo. 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.040 So from India. Many Bollywood songs have the word, and 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.600 then it's treated as this like far far away place, 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.560 which many people don't think it's real, right, And I 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:45.120 think it's the way it resonates in people's imagination. You 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.200 talk about Timbukto in Europe and it's also this far 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:50.480 away place, this city in the middle of the desert 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:52.680 that no one has been to, that it's a bit 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.480 mythological even, but it's an actual place. It's an actual city. 0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:00.360 It's home to around thirty thousand people. It's next to 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.360 the Nija River in northern Malis. And the reason why 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.600 there are so many stories around it is because it 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.520 used to be the capital of an ancient empire, and 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.240 it used to be a center for knowledge and culture, 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:17.920 especially religious studies in the Middle Ages. And so this 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.840 Vali station six one two to three, why did it 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.560 go silent and after one hundred and some years, Well, 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.120 the reason is that the staff had to abandon it. 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.640 The people that were maintaining it, that were taking the data, 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:34.520 maintaining the equipment, making sure everything was running smoothly, that 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.159 they had been doing that for many years, they had 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:41.280 to run. They had to fleet Timbuktu. And the reason 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:46.800 why this happened starts in twenty eleven with the Arab spring. 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.440 One is easy set himself on fire ten years ago, 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:52.920 which he couldn't have known that a suicide into Nija 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:59.560 would ignize the entire region. When the regime of Mamagadafi 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:04.000 collapse in Libya, many of the desert tribes that Khadafi 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.920 had been sponsoring and supporting through the decades had to 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:12.200 flee and became rebel fighters. Over the last few years, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.320 Mali has had a problem with militancy. In October twenty eleven, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.239 ethnic Tuaregs, mostly from the north of the country, launched 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.719 a rebellion. So one of these groups is the National 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.760 Movement for the Liberation of the Azawat and their Tareg fighters, 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.560 and what this group did was surround the city of 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.080 Timbucto and on the first of April twenty twelve, they 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.839 entered the city and took over it, took over the 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:41.359 main institutions. Then a few days later, the Jihadis of 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.240 a radical Islamic group called ant Sharin followed in and 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:50.080 they were waiving the black flags that were later characteristic 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.320 of the Islamic state in Syria and in other places. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.840 So that meant that radical Islamis had taken over the 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.599 city of timbuktwo. And that made the employees of the state, 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:05.159 from you know, top top government officials to the people 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.520 that were just maintaining the weather station six one, two 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.840 to three, they made them enemies of the invaders and 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.000 so they had to flee. And so what you're describing 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.880 is the start of the Mali War, which is still ongoing. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.839 And there have been multiple good thoughts that have happened since. 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.840 But when this happened in twenty twelve. What was going 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.880 on in the minds of the people who were working 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.120 on this weather station. Well, I didn't talk directly with 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.080 the people that were working on the station, but I 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:40.200 did talk to the person in the meteorological agency in 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:53.000 Mali who was responsible for these people commodity, And obviously 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.400 there was great concern. You have to imagine seeing all 0:06:56.400 --> 0:07:00.920 these news from Bamaco, from the capital news coming in. 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:05.680 It wasn't an immediate conquest. So the forces from the 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.680 tourreg surrounded the city for a few days. The elders 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.440 from Timbook too went out and started to negotiate with 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.400 them to make sure that they wouldn't destroy some of 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.760 the city's valuable ancient monuments and so on. So these 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.400 went on for a few days, and obviously rumors came 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:27.760 into the capital, and so this person from Mali's meteorological agency, 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:34.200 his first concern was to get the people out of there. 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:41.680 He not law. Obviously, it was very important that Mali 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.000 had a centennial weather station there, but it wasn't more 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.640 important than the lives of that people. So he made 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.840 sure he got them out of Timbook too safely and 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:55.080 luckily he did that. Now, let's talk about this weather station. 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.120 Why is it that it's so important to have had 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.200 that weather station there? So for any weather station, the 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.720 most important thing is not just the data that it 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.480 gathers is accurate, but that that data at any moment 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.280 in time can be compared with data that has been 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.880 recorded previously. Right, the weather stations that have been running 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.280 for more than a hundred years, that's why they're really relevant. 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:24.280 They're considered like the most the most valuable ones because 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.000 they allow scientists to compare what's happening today with what 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.200 used to happen like kids and more than a century ago. 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.360 So the loss of weather station six one, two two 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.760 three was tragic not just because of that, but because 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.960 they're really There are very few of those in Mali 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:46.920 and in Africa. So if a centennial station was lost, 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.920 let's say in China, where there are actually many, or 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.960 in Europe or in Russia, then it's always a tragedy 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.200 because a source of information gets lost. But in Africa, 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.000 where there are very very few of them, then that's 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.680 an actual problem because that means that the set of 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.600 data that this station has been gathering through time gets discontinued. 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.480 So scientists don't have a way anymore of knowing what's 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:17.600 happening in that place, and even immediately because this weather 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:22.080 station is collecting local data and also helping local people, 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.600 even immediately after going offline, there were impacts, right, Yeah. Absolutely, 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.760 it's not just a long term thing for climate scientists 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.720 to understand a phenomenon that might run for decades or 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.200 for many years, but it's actually weather stations have a 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.480 very immediate application. And in the case of station six 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.160 one to two three, it was very important because it 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.760 helped understand when a very strong gust of wind would 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.320 come through the desert into a lake Deboat, which is 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.320 Mali's largest lake. And so when the people around the 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.720 lake would receive an alert from the weather station that 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:01.880 this kind of extreme weather it was coming, they were 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:07.040 able to alert local fishermen and then people traveling in pinas, 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.280 which are kind of long boats that people traveling that 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.520 people used to transport goods and transport themselves. Even so, 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.280 in twenty eleven about ten people died in wind related 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:22.600 incidents around the lake Devout, but that number increased to 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.360 seventy and the year after Station six one two three 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.400 went offline, so went from ten to seventy just because 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.360 that station wasn't able to alert the people around the 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:44.640 lake zooming back. There's the local phenomena which we talked about, 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:49.240 but losing data from weather stations anywhere in the world, 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.840 but more so in places like Mali where there are 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.679 so few, also has international impacts. Right, yeah, absolutely, So 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.880 all these data, all these tiny data points that weather 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.800 stations gather every day. I think about them like little ants, right, 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.199 Like they do their work every day. They do always 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.520 the same. It's not very shiny, but what they do 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.920 is really important because these data fits then into all 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.480 these climate models, into the research that climate sciences do 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.880 to try to figure out how the world works today, 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.960 how the climate of the world works today, how it's changing, 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.680 and these is the data key to figure out how 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.079 it will change in the future. Right, And so this 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.440 whether data sort of becomes the ant hill, and the 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:37.120 ant hill certainly the thing of marvel. We know. There 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.120 was a very recent study earlier this year where they 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.199 found that only five percent of the deaths caused by 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.680 heat happened in tropical countries where eighty five percent of 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:53.840 people live. And that just is astonishing because that shouldn't 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.520 be statistically right, and when we asked a scientist about it, 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.400 she said, that's ridiculous, and the reason is because we 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:04.000 don't have data. That's right. And there is another study 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.800 actually that looked at heatwaves around the world and it 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:13.319 found that around the Sahara region there were no heatwaves, 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:17.040 no heatwaves had happened according to researchers. But that wasn't 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.560 the case. Obviously, in the world's biggest desert, there are heatwaves. 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.120 The problem is that there are no weather stations to 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.920 record them. Now, for the story, you produced a map 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.560 which I remember because it was a stunning map, and 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.520 it noted the density of weather data stations around the world. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.560 And as with many other things, the continent of Africa, 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.760 not just a few countries, but the continent of Africa 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:46.199 was dark. Yes, And that like a very obvious way 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.640 of showing that there are very, very very few weather 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.080 stations in Africa. In particular Mali has I said before 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.960 it used to have five centennial stations, for after the 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.640 one that we've mentioned in Timbuktu went. But in total 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:07.560 it has thirteen active weather stations, compared to Germany, for example, 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:12.280 in Europe, a country that's one third the size of Mali. 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:17.320 Germany has almost two hundred main weather stations, so that's 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.280 more than ten times what Mali has. And then it's 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.960 not just a matter of quantity but also of quality. 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:28.240 So the World Meteorological Organization says that weather infrastructure in 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.920 Africa is literiorating very fast, only twenty two percent of 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.800 the station's met global reporting standards in twenty nineteen. And 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.479 again this represents a very big problem for the scientists 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.880 trying to study the phenomenon, weather phenomenon and climate phenomenon 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.440 going on in Africa and in the rest of the world. 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.520 So this lack of data, how is that feeding into 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:53.560 or not feeding into climate science that looks at global 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.560 phenomena and looks at many different time periods. So the 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:03.760 data is necessary to produce climate science, and all the 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:08.720 scientific papers are gathered once every five years by the 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:12.720 IPCC into climate reports. The problem is that if there 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:19.359 is no data from Africa, the representation Africa has on reports, 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.080 very important reports like the IPCC is very very small. Now, 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.080 what's being done about the situation? The good thing about 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.040 all of this is that there's a lot of very 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.600 smart people trying to fix this issue. One of the 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:38.080 difficulties of this problem is that national meteorological organizations in 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:43.160 Africa are often underfunded, and setting up a station that 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:48.360 is valid for the WMO that can take reliable whether 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.400 data is not cheap. It can cost more or less 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.520 around twenty thousand dollars for every station just to set 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.320 it up, and then it comes maintenance and the staff 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.280 needed to maintain in it. Weather stations are not always 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.240 a priority. If you have a government that's struggling with 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.160 conflict in the case of Mali, or with natural disasters 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:13.160 in the case of many other African nations, then weather 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.880 stations figuring out how hot or how cold or how 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:20.040 humid is in certain places doesn't necessarily come on top 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.320 of mind for the people governing, right if you would 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.840 use that money twenty thousand dollars, there's a lot of 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.800 money I do think that are really important on the 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.360 ground as needed, that's it, and and that are more 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.760 urgent or that feel more important, like for example, you'd 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.920 set up schools, or you're set up food relief programs 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.840 or any any sort of program that solves an immediate need, 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.920 whereas often the weather and climate are seen as something 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:51.800 that's almost a luxury. But there is technological programs that's 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:56.080 happening that's helping. Yes, that's right. So what's been happening 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.000 in the past few years is that technology has made 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:03.840 some of these instruments used to measure climate and weather data. 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.760 It's made them cheaper, and it's also made it possible 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:11.560 for these instruments to actually send the data remotely, so 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.560 you wouldn't need a person doing the maintenance or being 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:19.280 there every day all day recording the sets of data. 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:22.080 One of the people I found in my reporting is 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:26.160 Nick Vanda Gisen. He's a professor in the Netherlands and 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.920 he has set up something called the Trans African Hydrometeorological Observatory, 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.920 and this is a network of weather stations across Africa. 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.840 They can work remotely, they use modern equipment, and they 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.760 are much much cheaper than the traditional ones. And how 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.560 much cheaper are we talking here? So we've said that 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.680 a traditional weather station costs twenty thousand dollars. Their goal, 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.560 Tahama's goal is for one station to cost around two 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.840 hundred dollars. That's a lot, that's a lot cheaper, and 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.800 they're not there yet. So they've been able to produce 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.960 weather stations at the price of around two thousand dollars 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.840 and they have installed around six hundred of these across 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.280 Africa since you reported the story last year. Have there 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.479 been any updates? Yesn't know. The main headline is that 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:17.120 station six one, two two three is still offline. When 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:22.800 I talk to the people at Malimtoto, you fully maintaine 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.399 or minimum. What they told me was that bringing it 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.320 back online would require a significant investment because this sort 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:35.640 of equipment is very delicate, and so when it goes 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.920 offline for a while and no one maintains it, then 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:42.360 it requires either huge maintenance or just completely new equipment. 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:47.280 That hasn't happened. The security situation in Mali hasn't improved either, 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.600 so people might have read in the news how French 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.760 troops and troops from the European Union have left Mali 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.080 as well. And actually one thing that happened is that 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.720 I wanted to go physically to Mali to report on 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.920 this story, and a few weeks, I think even just 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.520 a few days before, I was thinking about that tree 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.120 and trying to figure out how the logistics would work. 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:15.040 A French journalist was kidnapped by rebel groups, and then 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.480 that meant that the safety of journalists in that part 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:20.880 of Molly could not be guaranteed, so we could never 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:29.119 travel there after the break our. Timbuctoo's historical records the 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.960 answer to Mali's lack of weather data and what does 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.080 the lack of accurate climate models across the continent of 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:48.119 Africa mean for discussions of loss and damage. Of course, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.240 weather stations aren't the only way in which we can 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.800 gather data. Of course, current data is gathered from weather stations, 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:59.040 but there are other approaches to try and understand what's 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:04.159 happening to the continent right absolutely, and one way to 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.320 do that, and it's not just in Africa, it's being 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.680 done everywhere are historical documents. So if you go back 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.600 in time, people have been recording what the weather has 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.760 been like for hundreds and even thousands of years, and 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.679 there are clues in historic documents. In the case of 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:24.240 Mali and of Timbuktuo specifically, Timbuktu was a cultural center 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.440 and one of the main cities in North Africa, so 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.919 people would go there to study many many things and 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.360 they would leave written record of what was going on. 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:41.600 There are some stunning architectural buildings that still stand in Timbuctwo. Yeah, absolutely, 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.680 and they're actually protected by UNESCO. So they are ancient 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.560 shrines and churches that could be visited, and they're of 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:55.439 a characteristic architecture made with mud, very very typical of Timbuktu. 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.120 And so what used to happen in around the sixteenth 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.800 centuries that people like I said they would travel for 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.200 weeks and for months through the desert to learn from 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:09.600 the wise men in the city. They would learn everything 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:14.800 from Islamic theology, history, philosophy, anything. And then the city 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:19.040 was also across roads for tribes that lived in the desert, 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.080 so you can think that they used to be lots 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.919 of camel caravans and that would carry salt and gold, 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.360 even slaves across the desert and they would be traded 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.240 in Timbuktu. That left a very big pay portrayal in 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.960 the form of manuscripts that describe what life was like 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.840 at the time and that tried to register things from 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.119 agriculture techniques and obviously the weather. So we have these 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:49.920 historical documents from centuries ago that have detailed weather conditions 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.000 in them. Have we ended up using them in some form? 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:57.240 Not yet, And that's another fascinating part of the stories, 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.600 and something I find fascinating about Timbook two, and it's 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.399 that what we call the Timbook two manuscripts that people 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.399 might have heard or read about them, is a huge 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.680 collection of documents, not just from Timbook two, but from 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:17.040 the whole region that have been preserved within families for centuries. 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.800 So families will be guardians or custodians of a certain 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:26.600 set of documents that gets passed through generations, and academics 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:30.600 have only started to describe the surface of the wisdom 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.159 and the contents of these manuscripts. So I talk to 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:38.480 some researchers in the US that are digitalizing these documents, 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:42.200 so basically scanning them and making sure they don't get lost, 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:44.840 they don't get burned or stolen or anything like that, 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.960 and then analyzing the contents. They have made it possible 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:54.200 for people to search online certain keywords on these documents. 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.200 So if you do that search for rain, for example, 0:21:57.240 --> 0:21:58.960 you'll be able to find that there are a bunch 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.240 of documents that rain and rain changes and so on. 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.000 But no one as far as I know, has gone 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:09.639 as far as to put that into scientific research. But 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:14.199 that has been done with ancient documents. In European nations 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:18.400 like Germany and the UK, people have gone to monasteries 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:21.840 and looked at the annotations of what the weather was 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:24.800 like centuries ago and produce scientific research out of this. 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:28.000 So it's certainly possible to find better models eventually once 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:32.080 the stata has been translated into a usable form. Yes, absolutely, 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:34.800 it won't be as thorough as if you had had 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.360 someone recording the temperatures every day for the past five 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.640 hundred years, or water levels for the past five hundred years, 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:44.800 which you know there are places in the world that 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:48.199 have been recording for many centuries. But at least you 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:52.520 can have an idea on whether rivers were bigger or smaller, 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.920 whether rain was more frequent, the winds, etc. And then 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.800 that could help scientific research definitely. So there's the story 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:04.320 I find fascinating, which is in eighteen fifteen, Mount Tambora, 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:06.919 which is a huge volcano, went off and put all 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:12.800 these sulfur related compounds into the atmosphere. Caused what is 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:16.040 now known as the year that had no summer across 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:20.000 the world. There were famines, deaths, etc. But it also 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:24.320 changed art because researchers have now analyzed paintings from that 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:28.080 era compared them to the pre eighteen fifteen era, and 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:32.400 essentially the skies turned more orange because there was more 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:36.120 sulfur and that's what the painters were reflecting in their paintings. 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:39.280 So there's all these downstream impacts that happened from whether 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.719 and are they're recorded in these weird forms which may 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:45.200 not be data, but it's still data if you want 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:48.000 to interpret it that way. Yeah, and maybe we're going 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:51.080 a bit tough topic either know. But there's also research 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.760 on the legends that Aboriginal Australians tell each other and 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:58.280 have been telling each other for millennia, because you might know, 0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:02.680 the Aboriginal Australians are the longest running people or civilization 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:07.440 on Earth, and researchers have analyzed what they thought were 0:24:07.560 --> 0:24:10.480 legends and found that they actually tell the story of 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:14.960 the land. And so that these stories correspond with changes 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:18.280 on rivers and mountains and on the sea that actually 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.440 happened eighties and eighties ago. It's not just weather station's 0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:26.280 recording the changes and the data there's these changes can 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:28.480 be found everywhere. Now we are about to head into 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:32.000 another cop meeting, which is this annual climate conference that 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.600 the UN organizers. This time it's in Egypt November, called 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:38.200 COP twenty seven because it's a twenty seventh time it's 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:41.280 happening and it's the fifth time it's being hosted by 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:46.680 a country in Africa. How does the lack of good 0:24:46.720 --> 0:24:51.600 weather data fit into this international climate discussions and negotiations. 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:54.560 It's at the heart of it, because if you don't 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:57.960 have the data, then there is no discussion possible. We 0:24:58.119 --> 0:25:01.560 tend to say that Africa is the continent suffering the 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:04.719 most from climate change, but the one that has contributed 0:25:05.000 --> 0:25:09.119 less to it. So the second part we know for 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:11.720 a fact that it's the one that has contributed less 0:25:11.760 --> 0:25:14.760 to it. The first part of the sentence, it's suffering 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:18.480 the most, is the hard one to prove because we 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:22.879 have this intuition, but actually there isn't that much hard 0:25:23.000 --> 0:25:26.879 data on it. And the reason is again weather stations. 0:25:27.280 --> 0:25:30.280 So if you don't know whether a heat wave is happening, 0:25:30.480 --> 0:25:33.159 or why people are dying in a certain place, or 0:25:33.160 --> 0:25:37.040 why crops are failing, then it's really hard to attribute 0:25:37.160 --> 0:25:41.760 these effects to climate change. And so a lot of 0:25:41.920 --> 0:25:45.639 what will be discussed in COP this year will hopefully 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:48.720 be around that, around the need to have better data 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:52.960 coming from Africa in order to know more the effects 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:56.480 of climate change and what's happening there. And then the 0:25:56.560 --> 0:25:59.879