Global Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard
Africa
Africa accounts for 1.1% of global weather/climate economic losses and 36.3% of deaths, 1980-2025 (see Loss Normalization), broken down by phenomenon and cause below. This page also runs an IPCC AR6 Chapter 12 consistency check phenomenon by phenomenon, and hosts every live-computed variable this dashboard tracks at continent scale for Africa -- not every phenomenon runs for every continent; see the "Not Yet Available" note below for what Africa's source data doesn't yet support.
Summary Judgment — Africa
– of – tracked variables for Africa show a detected change (– increasing, – decreasing) — see the tiles below for each one.
AR6's regional detail reports an observed increase in agricultural and ecological drought across most African sub-regions (West, Central, and Southern Africa) — matching the detected drought increase computed here for the continent. Flooding runs more mixed: several sub-regions report an observed increase in river or pluvial flooding, while the GloFAS-based index here shows a detected decrease in high-flow conditions for Africa overall — a divergence, not smoothed over. AR6's tropical-cyclone and fire-weather findings for Africa remain projections only, with no observed baseline to check the no-detected-change results here against.
Source: AR6 WGI Regional Fact Sheet — Africa — this site detects observed historical trends only, never projections, so this comparison draws only on AR6's observed findings, excluding its projected ones.
Consistency with IPCC AR6 Chapter 12
Each phenomenon this site tracks for this continent, checked against AR6 WG1's Chapter 12 regional fact sheet -- see the Summary Judgment above for the fuller narrative version of this same comparison.
| Phenomenon | GWX finding | AR6 Ch.12 consistency |
|---|---|---|
| Drought | Computing… | Consistent |
| Flooding | Computing… | Partially consistent |
| Wildfire | Computing… | Not directly comparable |
| Tropical Cyclones | Computing… | Not directly comparable |
Each note above draws only on AR6's observed findings, excluding its projected ones, the same standard the Summary Judgment box applies. Source: AR6 WGI Regional Fact Sheet — Africa.
Economic Losses & Loss of Life — Africa's Share
Africa's position within the same global economic-loss and mortality totals shown on the Loss Normalization page -- not a separate, continent-specific breakdown by phenomenon (no source publishes a full continent x phenomenon matrix; OWID and the World Bank give continent totals and phenomenon totals separately, not both at once). This page reuses those continent-level numbers, calling out Africa's row.
Economic losses, 1980–2025
Africa accounts for 1.1% of global weather/climate economic losses.
- North America $2,913.4B 51.2%
- Asia $1,833.3B 32.2%
- Europe $584.4B 10.3%
- South America $162.6B 2.9%
- Oceania $134.5B 2.4%
- Africa $60.1B 1.1%
Loss of life, 1980–2025
Africa accounts for 36.3% of global weather/climate deaths.
- Asia 663,197 37.5%
- Africa 642,787 36.3%
- Europe 337,192 19.1%
- North America 65,487 3.7%
- South America 56,280 3.2%
- Oceania 3,767 0.2%
Both pies are constant-2025-dollar / EM-DAT totals, same sourcing and methodology as the Loss Normalization page -- see that page for the full reconstruction methodology, inflation adjustment, and citations.
Extreme-weather and climate trends for Africa, drawn from the same underlying data as GWX's global variables, aggregated (or, for tropical cyclones, grouped by the ocean basin(s) that border this continent) to just this continent rather than the whole planet. Not every phenomenon this site tracks has a per-continent breakdown yet (see below for what's still missing and why) -- the tiles here show only a computed Africa-scoped index, never a global figure relabeled. Clicking a tile opens that variable's full interactive chart, scoped to Africa. See the Methodology page for the full per-continent coverage status behind what appears here and what doesn't.
Detection of Long-Term Change — Africa
Flooding — Africa
Africa's live GloFAS chart appears above, in the tile grid (both the percentile-based "high flow" series and GloFAS's Alert/Warning/Severe return-period tiers). The literature finding below supplies context the live index alone doesn't capture, rather than standing in as a placeholder for it.
A large 399-gauge study (1981-2018, 11,302 flood events across most of the continent) found African flood magnitude tracks antecedent soil moisture more strongly than rainfall extremes themselves -- peak annual flooding tracks the annual peak in soil moisture more closely than the annual peak in rainfall, with implications for flood projections that look only at extreme-rainfall changes.
Tramblay et al. 2021, Water Resources Research 57(6) -- full citation in the Library.
Not Yet Available for Africa
Listed rather than silently omitted -- these gaps reflect what this site currently breaks out by continent, not a judgment that the phenomenon doesn't matter here.
- Extratropical Cyclone Intensity
- The source catalog (Gray, Volonte, Martinez-Alvarado, Harvey 2024) covers Northern Hemisphere WINTER (Oct-Mar) only -- it carries no genesis or track data near this continent, not just an unbuilt breakdown. See North America/Europe/Asia for the 3 continents this catalog covers.
- Heat Waves / Temperature Extremes
- The underlying GSN station network's density varies widely across continents: Europe and North America both clear a usable bar (see those pages), but Asia (peaks at 121 qualifying stations), Africa (37), South America (33), and Oceania (56) all stay well under 100 at their historical peak, too sparse to say "what changed" rather than "where the stations are."