Variability and time series trend analysis of rainfall and temperature in northcentral Ethiopia: A case study in Woleka sub-basin

Abstract Examining the spatiotemporal dynamics of meteorological variables in the context of changing climate, particularly in countries where rainfed agriculture is predominant, is vital to assess climate-induced changes and suggest feasible adaptation strategies. To that end, trend analysis has been employed to inspect the change of rainfall and temperature in northcentral Ethiopia using gridded monthly precipitation data obtained from Global Precipitation and Climate Centre (GPCC V7) and temperature data from Climate Research Unit (CRU TS 3.23) with 0.5° by 0.5° resolution from 1901 to 2014. Data have been analyzed using coefficient of variation, anomaly index, precipitation concentration index and Palmer drought severity index. Furthermore, Mann-Kendall test was used to detect the time series trend. The result revealed intra- and inter-annual variability of rainfall while Palmer drought severity index value proved the increasing trend of the number of drought years. Annual, belg and kiremt rainfall have decreased with a rate of 15.03, 1.93 and 13.12 mm per decade respectively. The declining trend for annual and kiremt rainfall was found to be statistically significant while that of belg was not significant. The rate of change of temperature was found to be 0.046, 0.067 and 0.026  °C per decade for mean, minimum and maximum respectively. The Mann-Kendall trend analysis test result revealed increasing trend for mean and minimum average temperatures through time significantly while the trend for maximum temperature exhibited a non-significant increasing trend. We recommend strategies designed in the agricultural sector have to take the declining and erratic nature of rainfall and increasing trend of temperature into consideration.