Impact of precipitation and increasing temperatures on drought trends in eastern Africa

Kew, Sarah F.; Philip, Sjoukje Y.; Hauser, Mathias; Hobbins, Mike; Wanders, Niko; van Oldenborgh, Geert Jan; van der Wiel, Karin; Veldkamp, Ted I. E.; Kimutai, Joyce; Funk, Chris; Otto, Friederike E. L.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-17-2021

Articles | Volume 12, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-17-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-17-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 1

Research article

|

06 Jan 2021

Research article |

| 06 Jan 2021

Impact of precipitation and increasing temperatures on drought trends in eastern Africa

Sarah F. Kew, Sjoukje Y. Philip, Mathias Hauser, Mike Hobbins, Niko Wanders, Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Karin van der Wiel, Ted I. E. Veldkamp, Joyce Kimutai, Chris Funk, and Friederike E. L. Otto

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-17-2021-supplement

Data sets

East African drought study S. F. Kew and S. Y. Philip https://climexp.knmi.nl/EastAfrica_timeseries.cgi

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Short summary

Motivated by the possible influence of rising temperatures, this study synthesises results from observations and climate models to explore trends (1900–2018) in eastern African (EA) drought measures. However, no discernible trends are found in annual soil moisture or precipitation. Positive trends in potential evaporation indicate that for irrigated regions more water is now required to counteract increased evaporation. Precipitation deficit is, however, the most useful indicator of EA drought.