State of the Climate in Africa 2021

Release Date:
12 October, 2022

Climate monitoring is performed by a network of observing systems covering the atmosphere, the ocean, hydrology, the cryosphere and the biosphere. Each of these areas is monitored in different ways by a range of organizations. Cutting across all these areas, satellite observations provide major contributions to global climate monitoring.

In 1992, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) was established jointly by WMO, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Science Council (ISC) to coordinate and facilitate the development and improvement of global climate observations. GCOS has identified a set of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) that together provide the information necessary to understand, model and predict the trajectory of the climate as well as plan mitigation and adaptation strategies.