Climate Change: You're Not Mistaken - Namibia is Indeed Hotter than Before

If you're a Namibian, older than twenty, bothered by a nagging suspicion that summer, these days, feels hotter than before...you're not mistaken. The data proves it. If you're sixty (60) and older, you'll know it for a fact that climate change in Namibia is a lived experience.   

   The data that proves your suspicions can be found on an obscure “scrunchie” website that pulls together global climate-related information, ranks, and compares the climatic conditions of one country with others. There's an advertisement for a chat bot at the bottom of every page because it isn't a high traffic site.

1. More “Hot Days” 

This specific site has an interesting report called “Number of Hot Days: Namibia” and while it appears as self-explanatory to Namibians, unsurprising even, it is significant that this particular report provides information about the number of hot days in Namibia from 1950 to 2014 or, over a period of sixty-four (64) years. The information is incredibly valuable (see Histogram 1).

  The site defines “hot days” with a simple formula: T > 30°C, meaning, T = temperature, > (more than), 30°C (the site's threshold). The last update was in 2014 and Namibia was ranked 53rd out of 245 countries for its number of hot days, between Ethiopia (52) and Belize (54). By using a ten-year interval scale, the report shows an increase in the number of “hot days” in Namibia, remarkably so over a thirty-year period beginning with 1980.

Histogram 1: Number of Hot Days in Namibia (1950 - 2014) 

(click on image to enlarge)

To simply illustrate the differences in the number of hot days, Namibia recorded 129 “hot days” out of 365 in 1950; in other words, 35% of the daytime temperatures in 1950 were higher than 30°C, whereas Namibia recorded 157 “hot days” out of 365 in 2014; in other words, 43% of the daytime temperatures in 2014 were higher than 30°C. Using these two variables only, one may infer that over a period of sixty-four (64) years (1950 - 2014), the number of “hot days” in Namibia increased by 8%, or by an additional twenty-eight (28) days. 

2. Yes but, is it true? 

If a closer look is taken at what had actually happened between 1950 and 2014, the picture looks even more troubling. In the decade between 1950 and 1960, Namibia recorded on average 130 “hot days” out of 365 per year (approximately 35%). When it is taken into account that temperatures typically decrease between April and August thereby making the incidence of hot days above 30°C unlikely during those months, 130 days correspond almost perfectly to four or five summer months in Namibia.

   Even more surprising, in the decade between 1960 and 1970, Namibia recorded an average of only 128 “hot days” per year, the coolest years with the coldest winters on record being 1963, 1964, and 1967. 

   The following decade, 1970 to 1980, the average number of “hot days” increased slightly to 129, indicative of yet another “cool” and comfortable decade.

  However, from 1980 to 1990, a mere ten (10) years, Namibia recorded an average of 136 “hot days” per year (approximately 37%), a significant increase from the decade before. 1982 and 1989 were the warmest years on record for that decade with 143 and 144 “hot days” (39%), respectively. 

   If you thought the number of hot days (>30°C) during the 1980s were surprisingly many, between 1990 and 2000, Namibia recorded an average of 139 “hot days” per year (38%), and the warmest years on record for that decade were 1997 and 1998 (41%).

   It should be clear, by now, that the difference between the average number of “hot days” in 1950 (130) and the average number of “hot days” in 1999 (139) is already more than a week.

  And, yet, this troublesome tale is far from over, for between 2000 and 2014 (14 years), Namibia recorded its warmest years with an average of 154 “hot days” per year (42%). The difference between an average of 130 “hot days” in the 1950s and an average of 154 “hot days” for fourteen (14) years, is twenty-four (24) days - almost one full calendar month more hot days at temperatures higher than 30°C, per year.

3. The Boiling Frog Analogy

Most of us are familiar with the “boiling frog” analogy. Besides being unnecessarily cruel and in poor taste, it is a universal apologue about a frog in a pot of water slowly becoming acclimatised to its environment and, eventually, boiling to death. 

  For climate change deniers, who insist that global warming is a hoax or fearmongering, the incredibly valuable information, very basic information, contained in that report on an obscure website and faithfully reproduced here in Histogram 1, should suffice as evidence that, yes, indeed, climatic conditions in Namibia have changed over the course of sixty-four (64) years at least, and there are now more hotter days recorded per year than in 1950, for example. 

  A global climate treaty, the Paris Agreement, ratified at COP21 in 2016, aims to keep an increase in the global surface temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, measured over a period of twenty (20) years. Namibia is a non-industrialised country with negligible carbon and methane emission levels but, its annual surface temperature has clearly increased.   

  Your nagging suspicion that summers in Namibia are hotter than you remember, is correct; since 1980, our country experienced more days per year at temperatures higher than 30°C than seventy (70) years ago. And, be assured that you are, in all likelihood, not the only boiling frog in the driest part of southern Africa; indigenous and native fauna and flora exposed to the elements daily experience the same and much worse.      

© Anya Namaqua Links, 2026