R. A. Preston-Whyte

Constructions of surfing space at Durban, South Africa

Surfers at Durban, South Africa, reveal a tendency to cluster in a number of different spaces off the bathing beaches. While this activity appears to function in a social environment that is at the same time companionable, competitive or exclusive, the manner in which the usually robust interaction with the material environment contributes to the construction of surfing space is not visibly evident to the outsider. A survey reveals that surfers construct surfing space out of images of a normative wave environment and practices and processes that are both sensory and social. Images of the perfect wave that describe the normative wave environment sought by surfers are acquired from surfing magazines and other media sources. Knowledge of wave shapes, winds and currents is provided by sensory-derived experience gained in the waves. Individual and group attitudes and behaviour in surfing spaces are socially constructed around issues of identity and exclusion. The path of surfing space construction is shown to link images of the perfect wave with sensory-derived knowledge of local wave conditions and socially constructed attitudes on the use of these spaces.

TOWARDS AN INVERSION CLIMATOLOGY OF SOUTHERN AFRICA: PART II, NON-SURFACE INVERSIONS IN THE LOWER ATMOSPHERE

ABSTRACT Radiosonde data for the years 1969–1972 have been processed to determine non-surface inversion conditions over Southern Africa. Results are presented to show, first, the spatial and point characteristics of mean non-surface inversions by season and by month, and secondly, the nature of inversion occurrence within six layers of the lower atmosphere.

Constructed leisure space: The Seaside at Durban

Abstract Few writers have commented on how seaside leisure spaces are socially constructed, who competes for their use, and how they may change. This paper discusses how these spaces have been identified and partitioned at Durban, South Africa, as new tourist populations discover them. Given the history of ethnic separation and contemporary social and political change in this country, attention is focussed on the extent to which groups retain and express a sense of identity in the construction of leisure spaces. Selected spaces are discussed to illustrate how they may be constructed around notions of cultural identity, the possession of particular skills, or access to scarce spatial and material resources.

Towards An Inversion Climatology Of Southern Africa: Part I, Surface Inversions

Abstract Radiosonde data for the years 1969-1972 have been processed to determine surface inversion conditions over Southern Africa. Results are presented to show the actual and probable frequency of occurrence, depth and strength of surface inversions at midnight, early morning and midday for the year as a whole and for summer, autumn, winter and spring.

THE TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABILITY: A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT Ever since the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, the concept of sustainable development has supposed to guide the future pattern of economies, societies and environmental well-being. Over the years, the notion of sustainability as a process of transition towards a more caring future for people and the planet, while enterprise flourishes, has gained topicality. This paper looks at how certain ideas, implicit in the transition to sustainability, can be converted into various economic, natural resources, social and environmental protection initiatives currently being developed in South Africa. The paper argues that many key policy measures could be converted to the sustainability paradigm with a programmed, but participatory change of original direction. However, there remains a serious lack of capacity within governance generally to meet legislative and popular expectations, particularly for South Africas poor people. For them, sustainability is a foreign word, even though many local actions and protests push in the general direction of sustainability. Genuine partnerships with South Africas energetic civil society are emerging and deserve much more specific encouragement, even though sustainability as such, will not be the only vehicle for this transformation. Sustainability remains too muddled, and too preferentially interpreted, for it ever to be a coherent driving force on its own.

Sea Breeze Studies In Natal

Abstract On the Natal coast maximum onshore components in .the sea breeze circulation are shown to occur below 1,000 f.t. The sea hreeze is shown on occasions to penetrate inland along a shear line for at least 40 miles and possibly even further. Characteristics of the depth, velocity and surging within this onshore air layer are examined and the relative contribution to the wind by the sea breeze circulation and by the gradient wind is discus.sed. It is suggested that on many occasions the inland penetration of the onshore wind, possibly with modified marine air properties, takes place in response to lowered pressures in adjacent inland areas in Southern Natal and East Griqualand.

A Note on Some Bioclimatic Consequences of Coastal Lows

Abstract Fluctuations in thermal comfort and in air pollution potential are examined in relation to the passage of coastal low pressure systems along the south and east coast of South Africa. The passage of a coastal low past Durban is shown first to raise the level of heat discomfort over the city due to pre-frontal warming and then to provide relief by postfrontal cooling. Fluctuations in the height of the subsidence inversion and in the mixing layer are also illustrated. It is shown schematically that in the period preceding a coastal low squall-front, the mixing layer contracts usually with a concomitant inorease in the level of atmospheric pollution. With the passage of the squall-front the pollutants are dispersed through the well-ventilated atmosphere.

Climatic Classification of South Africa: A Multivariate Approach

Abstract An array of 24 climatic variables for each of 73 stations in South Africa is submitted to Q-mode factor analysis and four complex indices, Winter Rainfall, Thermality, Summer Rainfall and Continentality are derived. The spatial variation of factor scores is described and an equation defining each of the factors is specified. By grouping factor scores using a distance statistic, South Africa is separately divided into 8 and 19 climatic regions. The results are compared with Jackson’s (1951) classification of the climates of South Africa.

Land Breezes and Mountain-Plain Winds Over the Natal Coast

Abstract In fine weather the nocturnal low-level offshore circulation along the Natal coast is found to be compounded of a land breeze and mountain-plain wind. Initially, the land breeze is an independent system and in the early evening the growth of the circulation is marked by the progressive inland extension of a shear line separating offshore from onshore wind components. Concomitantly, mountain winds in inland valleys deepen above ridge levels and combine into a mountain-plain wind which blows towards the coast. In the Durban area integration of the two wind systems takes place over the Hillcrest-Kloof plateau.

Land Breezes And Rainfall on the Natal Coast

Abstract The diurnal rainfall at Durban shows highest rainfall frequencies and totals at 2100 with sharp decreases thereafter. A high proportion of this nocturnal precipitation is of low intensity producing less than 1.0 mm/hr. It is suggested that the light nocturnal showers over the coast are produced by undercutting of moist sea air by the cool land breeze. The showers cease with, the arrival of the mountain-plain wind from the interior and subsequent deepening of the cool air layer.