Climate variations over southern Africa pose serious threats to human life through shortages of food and water and prevalence of infectious diseases. The underlying factors lie in El Niño and La Niña phenomena in the tropical Pacific and the recently identified subtropical dipole phenomena in the South Atlantic and southern Indian Oceans. Here I will introduce bilateral research activities between Japan and South Africa, which aim to predict the climate phenomena several months ahead of time, as well as the associated variations in crop yield and malaria outbreak over South Africa.

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