Masilin Gudoshava

• PhD
• Climate Modelling Expert at IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC)

Understanding the atmospheric factors that lead to extreme rainfall events is essential to improve climate forecasting. This study aims to diagnose the physical processes underlying the extreme rainfall event of November 2023 in Equatorial Africa (EA), using the ERA5 reanalysis dataset. Composite, spatio-temporal and correlation analyses are used t...

This paper reflects the discussions of early and mid-career researchers (EMCRs) during the World Climate Research Programme Open Science Conference 2023 EMCRs Symposium, to advance climate knowledge for greater transformative power in society and impact on policy-making. These discussions focused on three key priority challenges: how to produce rob...

In recent years, Eastern Africa has been severely impacted by extreme climate events such as droughts and flooding. In a region where people's livelihoods are heavily dependent on climate conditions, extreme hydrometeorological events can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. For example, suppressed rainfall during the March to May 2019 rainy season...

In recent years, there has been an increasing need for climate information across diverse sectors of society. This demand has arisen from the necessity to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate variability and change. Likewise, this period has seen a significant increase in our understanding of the physical processes and mechanisms that drive...

Seasonal climate forecasts are commonly based on model runs from fully coupled forecasting systems that use Earth system models to represent interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, land and other Earth-system components. Recently, machine learning (ML) methods are increasingly being investigated for this task where large-scale climate variabili...

Sustainability of African weather and climate information can only be ensured by investing in improved scientific understanding, observational data, and model capability. These requirements must be underpinned by capacity development, knowledge management; and partnerships of co-production, communication and coordination.

The Greater Horn of Africa is prone to extreme climatic conditions, thus, making climate services increasingly important in supporting decision-making processes across a range of climate sensitive sectors. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of the recent advances, gaps and challenges in the provision of climate services over the regi...

The Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) is highly vulnerable to climate and weather hazards such as drought, heat waves, and floods. There is a need for accurate seasonal forecasts to prepare for risks (such as crop failure and reduced grazing opportunities) and take advantage of favorable conditions (rains arrive on time and where they are needed) when t...

Eastern Africa exhibits bimodal rainfall consisting of long rains (March–May) and short rains (October–December), changes in which have profound socioeconomic and environmental impacts. In this Review, we examine the drivers and corresponding impacts of Eastern African rainfall variability. Remote teleconnections, namely the El Niño–Southern Oscill...

Human security will be progressively threatened as climate change undermines livelihoods, compromises culture and identity, increases climate-induced migration and forced displacement that people would rather have avoided, and challenges the states’ ability to provide conditions necessary for human security. Climate change may not be a direct drive...

A significant proportion of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa are vulnerable to extreme climatic conditions, hence there is a high demand for climate information. In response to this need, the Global Challenges Research Fund African Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Techniques has been undertaking a two-year testbed to co-produce t...

There is growing recognition of the multiple benefits of co-production for forecast producers, researchers and users in terms of increasing understanding of the skill, decision-relevance, uptake and use of forecasts. This policy brief identifies lessons learnt from two operational research projects, African SWIFT and ForPAc, on pathways for embeddi...

Timing of the rainy season is essential for a number of climate sensitive sectors over Eastern Africa. This is particularly true for the agricultural sector, where most activities depend on both the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall throughout the season. Using a combination of observational and reanalysis datasets, the present study in...

Forecasts on sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales have huge potential to aid preparedness and disaster risk reduction planning decisions in a variety of sectors. However, realising this potential depends on the provision of reliable information that can be appropriately applied in the decision-making context of users. This study describes the...

Africa is poised for a revolution in the quality and relevance of weather predictions, with potential for great benefits in terms of human and economic security. This revolution will be driven by recent international progress in nowcasting, numerical weather prediction, theoretical tropical dynamics and forecast communication, but will depend on su...

The skill of precipitation forecasts from global prediction systems has a strong regional and seasonal dependence. Quantifying the skill of models for different regions and timescales is important, not only to improve forecast skill, but to enhance the effective uptake of forecast information. The sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction (S2S) database...

New real-time sub-seasonal forecast information is aiding preparedness and disaster risk reduction decisions in key flood- and drought-vulnerable sectors across Africa and enabling significant progress in sub-Saharan Africa towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These services are demonstrating the potential for wider development of sub-seas...

Unique severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) prevention measures to distinct age, geographical and community groupings can only be effectively and efficiently implemented with a clear understanding on dynamics of the disease. Dynamics include disease spread, different risk factors and their level of influence and ind...

Abstract We analyze the potential effect of global warming levels (GWLs) of 1.5 ◦C and 2 ◦C above pre-industrial levels (1861−1890) on mean temperature and precipitation as well as intra-seasonal precipitation extremes over the Greater Horn of Africa. We used a large, 25-member regional climate model ensemble from the Coordinated Regional Downscal...

Integrating Hydro-Climate Science into Policy Decisions for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure and Livelihoods in East Africa (HyCRISTAL) is a Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) project funded to deliver new understanding of East African climate change and its impacts, and to demonstrate use of climate change information in long-term decision-making in...

This study focused on the customization of the fourth generation International Center for Theoretical Physics Regional Climate Model version 4.4 and its ability to reproduce the mean climate and most dominant modes of variability over East Africa. The simulations were performed at a spatial resolution of 25 km for the period 1998–2013. The model wa...

Information on thermal stress is scanty over Kenya. In this research, we applied the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in assessing the thermal stress levels over Kenya during the month of March 2016.

We analyze the potential effect of global warming levels (GWLs) of 1.5 °C and 2 °C above pre-industrial levels (1861−1890) on mean temperature and precipitation as well as intra-seasonal precipitation extremes over the Greater Horn of Africa. We used a large, 25-member regional climate model ensemble from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experi...

In recent decades, the urbanization rate in Africa has been growing rapidly. It is projected that by 2030, the rate could increase by about 590% over its 2000 levels. By 2050 Africa is projected to have the second highest urban population. East Africa is among the regions that are expected to have a high increase in urbanization. The urbanization c...

In the past centuries humans have modified the land use and land cover through different activities, such as urbanization. Although urbanization makes up a small percentage of the total land cover, the accelerated conversion of vegetated land to paved impervious land cover can have profound consequences on the socio-economic livelihoods of people a...

In the past few decades, the urban population over East Africa has been increasing steadily at a rate of approximately 4 to7%. This increase in population is expected to surge in the near future, with Lake Victoria Basin expected to have a population increase of approximately 300% over the year 2000 population in 2030. Most countries in this region...

This study seeks to investigate the performance of the 1-Dimensional lake model coupled to WRF over East Africa. The Africa Great lakes exert a great influence on the climate of the region and a number of studies have shown how the lake influences the circulation and the total precipitation over the region. The lakes have highly variable depths, wi...

In this study, sensitivity simulations on the impact of rapid urbanization over Lake Victoria Basin in East Africa were done using a Regional Climate Model (RegCM4.4-rc29) with the Hostetler lake model activated. The simulations were done for the rainy seasons that is the long rains (March-April-May) and short rains (October-November-December). Afr...

The Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF/Chem) version 3.4.1 has been modified to include the Carbon Bond 2005 (CB05) gas-phase mechanism, the Modal for Aerosol Dynamics for Europe (MADE) and the Volatility Basis Set (VBS) approach for secondary organic aerosol (hereafter WRF/Chem-CB05-MADE/VBS), and aerosol-cloud-radiation fe...