Dr. Issufo Halo received the Bjerknes Visiting Fellowship, giving him support to travel to visit the Bjerknes Centre in Bergen, Norway for two weeks. The Bjerknes Centre consists of four partners, of which three are also partners in the Nansen Tutu Centre. The visit was hosted by Annette Samuelsen from NERSC and Anne Britt Sandø from IMR.
As climate change is taking effect along the coast of Southern Africa it is important to know how it impacts the coastal environment and ecosystems. Climate models are too course to resolve the coastal processes. The purpose of the visit was therefore to establish collaborations with climate scientist to start a regional downscaling activity focusing on the eastern coast of southern Africa from the Mozambique Channel to the southern tip of Africa. In this region, the interaction between large mesoscale eddies and the Agulhas Current are key drivers of the local oceanography. They cause meanders, current-driven upwelling and occasionally early retroflection of the Agulhas Current, which affect both local temperature on the shelf and retention properties for plankton and larvae. During his stay Issufo met with researchers from all four partners of the Bjerknes Centre, he also gave presentations both at the Bjerknes Centre and IMR. It is not Issufo’s first visit to Bergen, he has already published several papers with co-authors in Norway, therefore the visit was both a reunion with old friends and the establishing of new potential collaborators within the Bjerknes Centre. As he returns to South Africa, his plan is to evaluate climate models in the region of interest. Later, the ocean model CROCO will be used to establish dynamical downscaling the climate models with a better representation of the current and wind patterns in this region.
Dr Issufo Halo has been a member of the Nansen Tutu Centre since its beginning in 2010, first as a PhD student, post.doc, representing CPUT on the board and currently as a research associate from DFFE, we are looking forward to seeing what comes next from his research.