Publications

2025

Munday, C., Washington, R., Engelstaedter, S., Zilli, M., Harbord, S., Knight, C., Attwood, K. and Hart, N. (2025). Southern African Climate Change: Processes, Models, and Projections. WIREs Climate Change, 16(5). 🔗 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.70025 (Open access)

  • This paper reviews our understanding of southern African climate change, documenting improving confidence in projections of early summer drying supported by emerging observed trends. However, it underscores the uncertainty in changes in the core rainy season (December-February) in part due to systematic climate model biases that have worsened through model generations.

Knight, C., Washington, R., Munday, C., Nkonde, E., Imbwae, F., Kasongo, W. (2025). The Congo Air Boundary in atmospheric reanalyses: a process-based evaluation. Prepared for submission.

  • This work shows that atmospheric reanalyses fail to simulate fundamental processes at the southern African tropical edge, and consequently struggle to resolve changes in convective regimes around rainfall onset.

Knight, C., Washington, R., Munday, C., Nkonde, E., Imbwae, F., Kasongo, W. (2025). Observations of the atmosphere across the Congo Air Boundary. Prepared for submission.

  • This work reveals the intricate mesoscale workings of the atmosphere at the southern Africa tropical edge for the first time, using field observations from the DRY-CAB project.

2024

Knight, C., & Washington, R. (2024). Remote Midlatitude Control of Rainfall Onset at the Southern African Tropical Edge. Journal of Climate, 37(8), 2519-2539. 🔗 DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0446.1 (Open access)

  • This work shows a connection between rainfall onset timing over subtropical southern Africa and remote midlatitude processes (specifically Rossby Wave Breaking) in the South Atlantic.


🎤 Conference Papers


  • Knight, C. The Congo Air Boundary in atmospheric reanalyses. Africa Meteorology and Climate Conference 2025, University of Reading 18th November 2025.

  • Knight, C. Observations of the atmosphere across the Congo Air Boundary. 14th International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography, Cape Town, South Africa. 31st March 2025.

  • Knight, C. First detailed observations of the African tropical edge dryline. Africa Meteorology and Climate Conference 2024, UKCEH. 3rd December 2024.

  • Knight, C. Midlatitude control of Congo Air Boundary breakdown and early-summer rainfall over southern Africa. Africa Meteorology and Climate Conference 2023, University of Oxford. 28th March 2023.