Investigating changes over time of annual rainfall in Zimbabwe
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Date
2010
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Copernicus Publications
Abstract
There is increasing concern in southern Africa
about the possible decline of rainfall as a result of global
warming. Some studies concluded that average rainfall in
Zimbabwe had declined by 10% or 100 mm during the last
100 years. This paper investigates the validity of the assumption that rainfall is declining in Zimbabwe. Time series
of annual rainfall, and total rainfall for (a) the early part of
the rainy season, October-November-December (OND), and
(b) the mid to end of the rainy season, January-FebruaryMarch (JFM) are analysed for the presence of trends using
the Mann-Kendall test, and for the decline or increase during years with either high or low rainfall using quantile regression analysis. The Pettitt test has also been utilized to
examine the possible existence of change or break-points
in the rainfall time series. The analysis has been done for
40 rainfall stations with records starting during the 1892–
1940 period and ending in 2000, and representative of all the
rainfall regions.
Description
Keywords
Climate change, Drought, Global warming, Zimbabwe
Citation
Mazvimavi, D. (2010). Investigating changes over time of annual rainfall in Zimbabwe. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 14, 2671–2679. 10.5194/hess-14-2671-2010