Spatiotemporal Changes in Temperature and Precipitation in West Africa. Part I: Analysis with the CMIP6 Historical Dataset
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African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), Sector Remera, Kigali 20093, Rwanda
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National Institute of Water (NIW), University of Abomey-Calavi, Godomey, Cotonou 01 PB: 4521, Benin
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Department of Physics, University of Cape Coast, Private Mail Bag, Cape Coast, Ghana
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Department of Physics, University of Ghana, Legon P.O. Box LG 63, Ghana
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Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Chang Huang
Water 2021, 13(24), 3506; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243506
Received: 1 November 2021
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Revised: 3 December 2021
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Accepted: 6 December 2021
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Published: 8 December 2021
(This article belongs to the Section Water and Climate Change)
Climate variability and change constitute major challenges for Africa, especially West Africa (WA), where an important increase in extreme climate events has been noticed. Therefore, it appears essential to analyze characteristics and trends of some key climatological parameters. Thus, this study addressed spatiotemporal variabilities and trends in regard to temperature and precipitation extremes by using 21 models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 6 (CMIP6) and 24 extreme indices from the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). First, the CMIP6 variables were evaluated with observations (CHIRPS, CHIRTS, and CRU) of the period 1983–2014; then, the extreme indices from 1950 to 2014 were computed. The innovative trend analysis (ITA), Sen’s slope, and Mann–Kendall tests were utilized to track down trends in the computed extreme climate indices. Increasing trends were observed for the maxima of daily maximum temperature (TXX) and daily minimum temperature (TXN) as well as the maximum and minimum of the minimum temperature (TNX and TNN). This upward trend of daily maximum temperature (Tmax) and daily minimum temperature (Tmin) was enhanced with a significant increase in warm days/nights (TX90p/TN90p) and a significantly decreasing trend in cool days/nights (TX10p/TN10p). The precipitation was widely variable over WA, with more than 85% of the total annual water in the study domain collected during the monsoon period. An upward trend in consecutive dry days (CDD) and a downward trend in consecutive wet days (CWD) influenced the annual total precipitation on wet days (PRCPTOT). The results also depicted an upward trend in SDII and R30mm, which, additionally to the trends of CDD and CWD, could be responsible for localized flood-like situations along the coastal areas. The study identified the 1970s dryness as well as the slight recovery of the 1990s, which it indicated occurred in 1992 over West Africa.
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Keywords:
extreme climate indices; spatiotemporal variability; innovative trend analysis; Mann–Kendall; Sen’s slope
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MDPI and ACS Style
Quenum, G.M.L.D.; Nkrumah, F.; Klutse, N.A.B.; Sylla, M.B. Spatiotemporal Changes in Temperature and Precipitation in West Africa. Part I: Analysis with the CMIP6 Historical Dataset. Water 2021, 13, 3506. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243506
AMA Style
Quenum GMLD, Nkrumah F, Klutse NAB, Sylla MB. Spatiotemporal Changes in Temperature and Precipitation in West Africa. Part I: Analysis with the CMIP6 Historical Dataset. Water. 2021; 13(24):3506. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243506
Chicago/Turabian StyleQuenum, Gandomè M.L.D., Francis Nkrumah, Nana A.B. Klutse, and Mouhamadou B. Sylla. 2021. "Spatiotemporal Changes in Temperature and Precipitation in West Africa. Part I: Analysis with the CMIP6 Historical Dataset" Water 13, no. 24: 3506. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243506
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