| Southern Africa, broadly defined here as Africa south of the equator, is a region prone to pronounced flood and drought events and significant climate variability on a range of time scales. Some of this variability is thought to be forced remotely via ENSO (e.g., Nicholson and Entekhabi, 1986; Lindesay et al., 1988; Mason and Jury, 1997; Nicholson and Kim, 1997; Reason et al., 2000; Allan et al., 2003) while some is related to variability in the neighbouring Indian and Atlantic Oceans (e.g., Hirst and Hasternrath, 1983; Lough, 1986; Ogallo et al., 1988; Walker, 1990; Mason, 1995; Reason and Mulenga, 1999; Reason, 1999; Behera and Yamagata, 2001; Rouault et al., 2003) or to local land surface processes (Zheng and Eltahir, 1998; Douville et al., 2001). It... |
