Climate variability in Lesotho

Professors Anson Mackay and Jonathan Holmes have succeeded in their proposal to the UCL-University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) University Strategic Partner Fund to initiate collaboration with Professor Jennifer Fitchett (Wits).

They plan to use stable isotope and climatological analyses to improve understanding of how regional climate patterns affect the land-locked African country of Lesotho.

There will be four key activities:

• Analyses of contemporary isotope data across southern Africa.
• A three-day Isotope Workshop Webinar (to be hosted by UCL).
• A three-day Rainfall Seasonality Synoptic Climatology Webinar (to be hosted by Wits).
• Fieldwork in Lesotho (COVID-19 permitting) to collect surface water samples and establish isotope monitoring stations at key locations. The isotope sampling work will be done in collaboration with the Lesotho Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture and local stakeholders.

Data from this project will form the basis of a larger future collaboration, based on Lesotho wetlands, investigating Holocene climate variability in southern Africa.

See

• Jennifer Fitchett