Dr. Chris Funk recently was interviewed at length for the BBC Radio World Service science program Discovery which has begun a series of three programs on the relation between climate change and crop production: “One of the most profound effects of climate change will be on humanity’s ability to feed itself. In the first of three programmes with the theme of science and food, Discovery looks at how climate change looks set to impact agriculture and food security in the coming decades, and at the methods scientists are using to quantify the scale of the challenges we face.” The program began broadcasting on Wednesday, 12 March, and you can listen to the entire 26 minute 30 second program at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/discovery.shtml.
The program consists of a series of interviews which BBC Senior Broadcast Journalist Andrew Luck-Baker conducted with experts, including Dr. Funk who is a researcher in Geography’s Climate Hazards Group. Chris is introduced as one of the first scientists to formally detect the trend of increasing drought in eastern and southern Africa. He began analyzing records of rainfall in the area, particularly in Ethiopia, about 5 years ago, and he detected a sharp decline in rainfall over several decades. According to Chris, the warming of the central Indian Ocean water surface due to climate change may have led to the drought crisis by reducing the prevailing flow of moisture from sea to land in eastern and southern
