ABSTRACT
To assess the potential disruptions, risks or opportunities that changes in the climate may present in an urban and peri-urban environment, it is often critical to first understand how the current climate shapes metropolitan activities and how possible future climate conditions may alter the way those activities are undertaken. To do this requires an understanding of the local climate, how it is modulated through the annual cycle (the changing seasons) and how the local climate is influenced and driven by the large-scale atmospheric circulation. It is important to clearly distinguish between weather and climate patterns. While weather constitutes the atmospheric conditions experienced locally over short time periods (measured over hours and days), climate refers to the average atmospheric conditions over much longer timescales (the average of measurements taken over 30 years or more). It is noteworthy that, unlike the case in most European cities, a significant body of academic work on Cape Town’s urban climate does not exist. This chapter presents some background information on how the current climate of Cape Town and its environs is shaped by local topography (variations in the land surface height) and proximity to the ocean (see Figure 2.1), and how the climate may be expected to change in the future, given anthropogenic climate change. The city of Cape Town, local topography and proximity to the ocean https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203112656/b3792d8b-d583-4621-97eb-fd612d7f30c9/content/fig02_01_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Source: Google, AfriGIS, Tracks4Africa (2011)
