VARIABILITY OF THE RECENT CLIMATE OF EASTERN AFRICA

Carl J. Schreck, III North Carolina State University Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences & Fredrick H. M. Semazzi North Carolina State University Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences & Department of Mathematics Raleigh, North Carolina

June 2003 Submitted to the International Journal of Climatology

Corresponding author address: Fredrick H. M. Semazzi, North Carolina State University., Dept. of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, Raleigh, NC 27695-8208, e-mail: fred_semazzi@ncsu.edu; telephone# (US) 919 515 1434; fax# (US) 919 515-1683.

Key words: Eastern Africa, Climate variability, Climate change, CMAP, El-Nino/Southern Oscillation, Greater Horn of Africa, Indian Ocean Zonal Mode Abstract The primary objective in this study is to investigate the recent variability of the Eastern Africa climate. The region of interest is also known as the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA), and comprises the countries of Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania. The analysis was primarily based on the construction of empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) of gauge rainfall data, and CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) data derived from a combination of rain gauge observations and satellite estimates. The investigation is based on the period of 1961-2001 for the short rains season of Eastern Africa of October through December. The EOF analysis was supplemented by projection of NCEP wind data on to the rainfall eigenmodes to understand the rainfallcirculation relationships. Furthermore, correlation and composite analyses have been performed with the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) globally averaged surface temperature time series to explore the potential relationship between the climate of Eastern Africa and global warming (GW). The most dominant mode of variability (EOF1) based on CMAP data over Eastern Africa corresponds to El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate variability. It is associated with above normal rainfall amounts throughout the entire region except Sudan. The corresponding anomalous low-level circulation is dominated by easterly inflow from the Indian Ocean and to a lesser extent the Congo tropical rain forest into the positive rainfall

anomaly region that extends across most of Eastern Africa. The easterly inflow into Eastern Africa is part of diffluent outflow from the maritime continent during the warm ENSO events. The second Eastern Africa EOF is associated with GW. In distinct contrast from the ENSO mode pattern, the GW mode is characterized by positive rainfall anomalies over the north-eastern sector of Eastern Africa and opposite conditions over the south-western sector. This GW rainfall mode eluded detection in previous studies that did not include recent decades of data, because the signal was still relatively weaker. The wind projection onto this mode indicates that the primary flow that feeds the positive anomaly region over the northern part of Eastern Africa primarily emanates from the rainfall deficient southern region of Eastern Africa and Sudan. Comparison between the Eastern Africa and global EOF ENSO modes over Eastern Africa reveals important dependency of the results on the size of the domain over which the eigemode analysis is performed. The EOF analysis confined to Eastern Africa is not capable of separating the variability associated with ENSO and the Indian Ocean Zonal Mode (IOZM) since the corresponding rainfall spatial anomaly patterns are similar. The global EOF analysis can easily distinguish between these two modes of climate variability because of the large differences between them outside the Eastern Africa region.

1. Introduction This is a study of the recent climate variability over the eastern region of Africa also known as the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA). The GHA region comprises ten countries (Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania). ENSO is the most dominant mode of interannual climate variability in Eastern Africa (Rasmusson and Carpenter, 1982, Nicholson 1996, Nicholson and Entekhabi, 1987, Ropelewski and Halpert, 1987, and Nicholson and Kim, 1997). The ENSO-induced rainfall anomalies are characterized by a dipole pattern over Eastern and Southern Africa. During the warm ENSO events most of Eastern Africa receives abundant rainfall during the "short rains" season of October through December (Ogallo, 1988, 1989). However, Southern Africa experiences below normal rainfall in response to the warm ENSO events. This rainfall anomaly dipole tends to reverse sign during the La Nina conditions. There are several potential factors that could be responsible for the climate anomalies over Eastern Africa during the warm ENSO events although definitive studies have not yet been conducted to ascertain their relative roles. The eastward shift of the rising branch of the Walker circulation (Tyson, 1986) toward eastern Africa should be expected to induce positive anomalies during the "short rains". During the warm ENSO events there we also expect enhanced evaporation and therefore moisture availability associated with the buildup of warm SST anomalies over the Indian Ocean. However, horizontal convergence anomaly motion associated with higher SSTs over the Indian Ocean during the warm ENSO events could also contribute to the opposite effect of suppressing the Eastern Africa short rains by weakening the prevailing southeasterly low level circulation over Eastern

Africa. Therefore, the observed net impact of ENSO on the Eastern Africa rainfall is a result of complex alignment and interplay among several potential sources of climate variability. In recent years the increasing intensity of the global warming could have significantly offset the subtle balance among the various climatological sources of climate variability over Eastern Africa during ENSO. Three of the last five years prior to the most recent IPCC report (IPCC, 2001) have been the warmest in the instrumental record. This is consistent with the projections that increases in greenhouse gases will lead to continued long term warming. Recent detection and attribution studies of IPCC have reported new and stronger evidence that most of the global warming (GW) observed over the ast 50 years is l attributable to human activities. In the present study one of the primary objectives is to investigate the relationship between regional Eastern Africa rainfall variability and GW. Most of the previous studies of the Eastern Africa rainfall climate variability (Atwoki, 1975, Cadet and Diehl, 1985, Ropelewski and Halpert, 1987, 1989, Ogallo et al., 1988, Nyenzi 1992, Semazzi and Indeje, 1999, and others), did not include the recent decades since the late 1970s when unusually rapid warming has been in progress (Fig. 1), in contrast from the decades of the 1940s through the late 1970s when no appreciable changes in global average surface temperature occurred. Therefore one of the primary objectives in this study is to investigate the climate variability of Eastern Africa during the recent decades when the global warming signal has been rapidly intensifying.

This paper is organized as follows; section 2 introduces the data sets used in this study. The empirical analysis methods are introduced in section 3. Section 4 presents discussion of the results. Summary and conclusions are presented in section 5. 2. Data 2.1 CMAP Rainfall Data The primary analysis Eastern Africa rainfall variability is based on CMAP (CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation) data (Xie and Arkin, 1996a, Xie and Arkin, 1996b, and Xie and Arkin, 1997) derived from a combination of gauge observations and satellite estimates. The African rain gauge data observed during the post-independence era of the 1970s through the more recent years suffers from many spatial and temporal discontinuities over large sections of Eastern Africa. This constraint is less apparent in the Sahel region of West Africa where the rainfall observational network was stimulated by the devastating droughts, which started during the late 1960s. We have therefore adopted CMAP as the primary data set for the study. There are two versions of CMAP data. One is based on a combination of gauge observations, satellite estimates, and numerical model outputs. The other one, which we use in this study, was derived from gauge observations and satellite data only. Preliminary test calculations have indicated however, that both data sets yield very similar results. The algorithm for merging various kinds of observations for c onstructing the CMAP data is described in Xie and Arkin (1997). We use the near global 2.5o x 2.5o resolution, monthly stratified, version (v0107) of the CMAP data. A pentad (5-day) version is also available

but was not used in this study. The CMAP data covers the period, January 1979 through December 2001 averaged over three months data segments for October, November, and December during the short rains of the region. Several limitations about the CMAP data set are worth noting. Here, we are primarily concerned about the merits and deficiencies that relate more directly to the tropics. Areas with sparse or no gauges, or areas where the satellite estimates have large errors or poor sampling are likely to exhibit larger errors. In general, the data set is best suited to identifying and quantifying in a relative manner the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation in the tropics. Variability in mid-latitudes is characterized less well, but still usefully. Caution is required in using the data at latitudes poleward of 60 degrees. Global averages appear to be accurate to within 5-10%, but individual grid area values probably have much greater uncertainties. 2.2 NCEP Wind Data We adopted the NCEP re-analysis wind data to investigate rainfall-circulation relationships associated with the dominant CMAP EOF modes of regional climate variability. The NCEP/NCAR 51-year (1948-1998) reanalysis uses a frozen modern global data assimilation system, and a data base as complete as possible. The data assimilation (3D-Var; Kalnay et al., 1996) and the global spectral model are identical to the global system that was implemented operationally at NCEP on January 1995, except that the horizontal resolution is T62 (about 210 km).

3. Methods of investigation The primary vehicle of investigation is the EOF method. The formalism for implementing EOF analysis is well known in diagnostic work. In the present treatment, it involves the computation of the eigenmodes for the correlation matrix based on the normalized seasonal rainfall data stacked into a single input vector. The software for solving the resulting matrix problem is widely available in a variety of standard statistical packages. Bretherton et al. (1992) examined the trade-offs between the commonly applied techniques for the detection of coupled climate signals existing in a given pair of geophysical data sets. They found that the EOF method of the form adopted in the present analysis is satisfactory over a wide range of data structures, although it is certainly not universally optimal. Two sets of CMAP EOF calculations corresponding to the Eastern Africa region and the near global domain were performed. The regional analysis covers the domain, 12.5S < latitude < 22.5-N and, 21.0-E < longitude <54.0-E (Fig. 2). The near global domain is defined over the area: 88.75-S < latitude < 88.75-N and, 1.25-E < longitude < 1.25-W (358.75). To reduce the demand for computer memory, a 9-point smoothing filter was applied to the near-global dataset to reduce the resolution from 2.5 to 7.5. In applying the 9-point smoother even if one of the nine points were missing the data i the rest of the n stencil was entirely ignored. To supplement the EOF rainfall analyses we adopted a compositing approach to construct the corresponding circulation patterns based on NCEP wind data. They were obtained by calculating weighted averages of the grid point wind data using the amplitudes of the EOF time series as the weights. 8

4. Discussion of results 4.1 CMAP rainfall climatology over Eastern Africa To assess the suitability of CMAP data for investigating the Eastern Africa climate we compare CMAP climatology with rain-gauge climatology. The comparison is confined to a smaller inner domain extending over the three countries; Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda (Fig. 2). Figs. 3a-c display CMAP climatology over Eastern Africa for the months of October through December, which corresponds to the short rains. In response to the overhead position of the Sun the southward migration of the rain belt is the most dominant feature of the month-to-month intra-seasonal variability. In October the region of maximum CMAP rainfall resides mainly over Uganda. In November the region of maximum rainfall extends over a larger area from western Uganda into central Kenya. In contrast, central Tanzania exhibits lower amounts than the surrounding region except for the coastal land strip. In December the region of maximum rainfall withdraws from Uganda and Kenya and shifts southward to occupy most of Tanzania. The rain-gauge monthly climatologies for October through December are shown in Figs. 3d-f, and they agree closely with the monthly means computed by Nicholson (1996), which were based on gauge data. Comparison of CMAP monthly climatology (Figs. 3a-c) with rain-gauge climatology (Figs. 3d-f) indicates close agreement with the intra-seasonal evolution of the short rains based on CMAP data. This close agreement in some cases holds even for small-scale features such as the dry semi-arid zone over the Lake Turkana basin in the north-east region of Kenya. It is apparent that CMAP data can track the complex evolution of the short rain throughout the region. This underscores our confidence in the CMAP data for investigating the

variability of the Eastern Africa rainfall. It is evident however that CMAP rainfall fields are smoother than the corresponding patterns based on rain-gauge data. Nevertheless, CMAP rainfall captures well the complex evolution of the ITCZ across the rugged terrain and highly variable vegetation distribution over Eastern Africa. 4.2 Results of EOF analysis of Eastern Africa rainfall The first two CMAP EOFs for Eastern Africa (Regional-EOF1 and Regional-EOF2) are significant. Several statistical tests are available for ascertaining the significance of eigenmodes s uch as, North et al (1982), Kendall (1980) and the Monte Carlo method described by Overland and Preisendorfer (1982). In the present analysis we adopted the method based on Kendall (1980). Kendalls criterion for distinctly separated EOFs, for sample size N , is that the sampling error, = (2 / N )1/ 2 , associated with a given eigenvalue

, must be smaller that its spacing from the neighboring eigenvalue. Visual

inspection of the eigenvalue histogram in Fig. 4 confirms the significance of the leading two eigenmodes. The rest of the EOF modes for Eastern Africa appear to represent noise. Fig. 5a shows the spatial pattern for the leading Eastern Africa eigenmode (RegionalEOF1). Positive Regional-EOF1 loadings extend into Southern Sudan, Somalia, Eastern DRC, Zambia, and Malawi thus covering most of the region known as the Greater Horn of Africa including the western sector of the Indian Ocean. Negative loadings for RegionalEOF1 are only observed in Sudan and to the west of Eastern Africa over the Congo tropical rain forest region. Nyenzi (1992) also found a remarkably similar distribution of EOF loadings although his analysis was based on a smaller region covering only the

10

countries of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. The variance of EOF1 in Nyenzi (1992) is 50% compared to 29% of our corresponding mode. We believe this difference in variance may be attributed to the larger region covered by our analysis. Our analysis covers the entire Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) region extending across ten countries compared to only three countries considered by Nyenzi (1992). The corresponding EOF time series (Fig. 6a) indicates that Regional-EOF1 for Eastern Africa is consistent with E NSO variability. The major warm ENSO events for the period covered by the CMAP data (1979-2001) correspond to the high peaks of the time series. In particular the ENSOs of 1982 and 1997 are distinctly conspicuous. Studies of the climate anomaly conditions observed over Eastern Africa in 1997 indicate that in addition to the role of the 97/98 ENSO in bringing heavy rains to the region, the large build up warm SSTs over the Indian Ocean also played a major role in producing one of the wettest short rains on record (Goddard et al., 1999). The only comparable anomalies occurred in 1961 although in that case the Indian Ocean SSTs appear to have been entirely responsible since there was no ENSO in that year. The interpretation based on RegionalEOF1 is that regional EOF analysis cannot distinguish between ENSO and Indian Ocean induced rainfall anomalies over Eastern Africa. However, this could be due to deficiencies resulting from the algorithms used in the construction of CMAP data. To clarify this question we conducted another regional EOF analysis based on rain gauge data for Eastern Africa. The rain gauge data regional EOF analysis was based on 144 rain gauge stations unevenly distributed (Fig.7) over the inner domain located inside the primary region of interest (Fig.1). The analysis is based on the 30-year period, 1961-1990. Fig.8 shows a

11

comparison of time series for Regional-EOF1 (based on CMAP data) & Gauge-EOF1 (based on rain gauge data). For the overlapping period (1979-1990) the two EOF time series are in close agreement thus underscoring our confidence in the suitability of CMAP data as proxy for rain gauge data, particularly since the latter has gaps over large areas of our region of interest. The peaks in the gauge-based EOF coincide very well with the CMAP-based EOF1. More importantly, with regard to the specific objective for doing this comparison, we confirm that the regional analysis is not able to assign a separate EOF for the Indian Ocean-induced rainfall variability over Eastern Africa as we clearly see in the case of the 1961 extreme climate anomaly event (Nicholson, 1996). This analysis indicates that it may be desirable to expand the region of analysis to a larger size that allows the EOF analysis to distinguish between the ENSO-induced and Indian Ocean induced climate variability over Eastern Africa. This question is pursued further in section 4.3 by adopting a near global domain for the EOF analysis. Fig. 5b displays the spatial pattern for the Eastern Africa Regional-EOF2 which explains 14% (Fig. 4) of the total variance. The distribution of the loadings is characterized by a dipole pattern of loadings. The corresponding time series (Fig. 6b) exhibits both strong interannual variability and low frequency variability background. The evolution of the background amplitude reached lowest levels during the early 1980s and peaked in the mid1990s, and overall there is an increasing trend during the entire period. There is indication of subsequent decline in the amplitude during the late-1990s. Combined interpretation of the Regional-EOF2 distribution of loadings (Fig. 5b) and the corresponding time series (Fig. 6b) suggests that the northern sector of Eastern Africa is getting wetter while the southern

12

sector is drying up. Inspection of the time series suggests likely relationship with global climate warming. This is explored in more details in section 4.3. 4.3 Results for EOF Analysis of global CMAP data To further ascertain the identity of the two significant EOFs for Eastern Africa (Regional-EOF1 and Regional-EOF2) we compared them with the leading CMAP global eigenmodes. A 9-point spatial filter was applied on each seasonal global CMAP data set to reduce the size of the matrix inversion problem in the construction of EOFs. The first three global CMAP EOFs (Global-EOF1, Global-EOF2, Global-EOF3) are significant based on the Kendall (1980) test. The eigenvalues for these three modes are well separated from each other, as shown in Fig. 9. The spatial patterns for the three eigenmodes are displayed in Fig. 10 and the corresponding time series in Fig.11. The leading mode (Global-EOF1) (Figs.10a and 11a) clearly represents ENSO variability. Fig. 10a shows the classical distribution of rainfall corresponding to the warm ENSO events (Rasmusson and Carpenter, 1982). The most dominant feature is associated with large-scale shift in tropical precipitation over the Pacific Ocean, from the normal conditions. The positive phase of this mode results in suppression of rainfall over the maritime continent, including Australia and the northeastern part of South America. Positive anomalies in rainfall extend across the central eastern Pacific Ocean and our primary region of interest of Eastern Africa. Over Eastern Africa, we observe the classic climate anomaly dipole pattern associated with warm ENSO events. Numerous studies have investigated the evolution and dynamics associated with ENSO variability. The role of the physical and dynamical processes responsible for its evolution is now well understood (Cane et al., 1986). 13

The entire region of Eastern Africa (Fig. 10a) experiences enhanced rainfall which is consistent with the loadings distribution of Regional-EOF1 (Fig. 5a). In contrast, dry anomaly conditions prevail over Southern Africa although the summer rainy season does not peak until January or February during the southern hemispheric summer. In a recent study, Semazzi and Indeje (1999) examined the coupled variability between the African continental rainfall and the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) for the period of 1927-1973. They employed singular value decomposition (SVD) and the combined empirical orthogonal functions (CEOF) methods to construct the coupled modes. The results provided a coherent and continuous description of the spatial and temporal climatological evolution of the response of the African rainfall to ENSO. In October-November-December and January-February-March, the response is dominated by a dipole rainfall pattern, with Eastern Africa in phase with the warm ENSO episodes and Southern Africa negatively correlated with the El Nino events. The present results are in close agreement with Semazzi and Indejes continental analysis. In April-May-June the dipole is replaced by a uniform phase anomaly pattern over Southern Africa, which is negatively correlated with the warm ENSO events. In July-August-September, the center migrates to the Northern Hemisphere and is mainly concentrated over Central Africa, north of the equator. The time series for Global-EOF1 is shown in Fig. 11a. The peaks corresponding to the major El Nino events of 1982/83 and 1997/98 and the La Nina events of 1988 and 1998 stand out prominently in the time series. Our analysis is also consistent with the observation made by Trenberth and Hoar (1996) that the 1990-1995 E Nio-Southern Oscillation l event was the longest on contemporary record. The corresponding amplitude of Global-

14

EOF1 is positive through out this period. Comparison of global EOF1 (Fig. 10a & 11a) and Regional-EOF1 (Fig 5a and 6a) confirms our earlier speculation in section 4.1 that the latter primarily represents ENSO variability over Eastern Africa. The general features of the spatial pattern of the second global eigenmode ( Global-EOF2; Fig. 10b) exhibits close similarity to the global ENSO mode (Global-EOF1; Fig. 10a) over Eastern Africa. However, the structures of the two EOFs differ significantly over the maritime continent. More specifically, Global-EOF2 is characterized by a cellular structure over the west Indian Ocean and maritime continent compared to uniform loadings distribution in Global-EOF1. It is apparent that the Global-EOF2 mode represents conditions when ENSO and IOZM events occur simultaneously. The variability of the Indian Ocean zonal mode (IOZM) has received much attention in the recent years (Clark et al., 2003, Saji et al., 1999, Yu and Rienecker, 2000, and others). They have pointed out that simultaneous with the strong El Nio event of 1997-1998, an extreme example of a positive IOZM event occurred during the early boreal fall of 1997 when strong upwelling and cooling occurred along the Sumatra coast. Throughout the entire period the SST gradient along the equator was reversed. Webster et al. (1999) interpreted the sequence of events observed in 1997 over the Indian Ocean as a manifestation of coupled ocean-atmosphere instability which perpetuated the longitudinal SST gradient. Clark et al (2003) have pointed out that this SST zonal gradient has appeared many times during the last few decades although with a smaller magnitude than the event of 1997. The time series for G lobal EOF2 is displayed in Fig.11b and it confirms the extremity of the 1997 compared to any other year in the record (1979-2001) covered by CMAP data, 1979-2001. In recent decades, only in 1961 did the IOZM have

15

comparable magnitude to 1997 and Webster et al (1999) have speculated that this mode was a key factor in producing the devastating 1997-1998 floods of Eastern Africa. In sharp contrast from the 1997-1998 ENSO event the magnitude of the IOZM event during the 1982-1983 ENSO was virtually zero (Fig. 11b). To further ascertain that Regional-EOF1 time series (Fig. 6a) includes contributions from both ENSO and the Indian Ocean we combined Global EOF1 and Global-EOF2 time series. The aim was to test the hypothesis that the combined variability of these two global modes is approximately equivalent to Regional-EOF1 time series in Fig.6a. The combining was accomplished by multiplying each modes time series by the corresponding variance and adding the results. Table 1 shows that the correlation of the combined time series with Regional EOF1 is significantly higher (0.90) than is the case with either of the two global mode time series (0.69 and 0.57). This further confirms our hypothesis that the EOF analysis confined to Eastern Africa cannot distinguish between the variability associated with ENSO and the Indian Ocean. The third most important global eigenmode (Global-EOF3) is shown in Figs. 10c and 11c. In a global context its features are less organized than the corresponding EOF patterns for Global-EOF1 and Global-EOF2. However, closer inspection over Africa reveals a coherent spatial structure that consists of two primary features. One is a zonal band of positive anomalies extending across the entire breadth of the Sahel climate zone of Africa, the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Peninsular. The second feature in Global-EOF3 is a series of organized alternating positive and negative anomaly cells, with the southern part of Eastern Africa and Madagascar associated with negative anomalies. This wave structure is

16

reminiscent of large amplitude trapped Rossby wave phenomena which Semazzi and Song (2001) have suggested as a possible mechanism for local teleconnection over Eastern and Southern Africa. They hypothesized that similar wave-like pattern produced by their GCM deforestation experiments of the African tropical rain forests was a result of the suppression of Rossby wave trains associated with anomalous mid-tropospheric latent heating. Many studies have shown that latent heating associated with tropical convection tends to excite Rossby waves (Kalnay et al 1986) downstream from the source region. The intensity and meridional structure of the mean zonal flow essentially determines the relationship between the wavelength and trajectories of the ensuing wave patterns (Hoskins and Karoly, 1981). Splitting of forced Rossby wave trains usually observed in connection with tropical forcing arise because large-scale waves propagate freely polewards and eastwards of the poleward flank of the jet. In the atmosphere, global scale teleconnection patterns are the poleward propagating planetary Rossby wave trains predicted by theory (Hoskins and Karoly, 1981). On the contrary, there have been fewer observational examples of the trapped short scale waves, which are also predicted by theory, largely because of the limited data coverage over the tropics. For the Southern Hemisphere Kalnay and Halem (1981) were among the first to point out the existence of large amplitude, short wavelength, and stationary Rossby wave trains. These waves, with a dominant scale of wavenumber 7, were prominent over South America during the entire month of January 1979, the first month of FGGE Special Observing Period (SOP-1). Kalnay et al (1986) closely reproduced the observed wave trains using a General Circulation Model and found that anomalies in latent heat released by widespread tropical convection was the primarily responsible for their origin.

17

The time series for Global-EOF3 (Fig.11c) exhibits longer time-scale than the first two global EOFs (Global-EOF1 and Global-EOF2; Fig 11a and 11b, respectively). For most of the period prior to 1990 the sign of the amplitude is negative, with the exception of 1979 and 1987, which are only slightly positive. In contrast, all the years from 1990 onward are positive. The tendency of Sahelian region of Africa to become wetter in the recent years is consistent with the analysis of trend of observed rainfall data and GCM simulations in the recent IPCC report (IPCC, 2001; Fig 8.16). The negative tendency of rainfall anomalies over the southern part of Eastern Africa which we have found in our study (Fig. 10c) is also well captured in the IPCC observed rainfall patterns but the signal is weaker in the GCM simulations. The IPCC A2 and B2 scenario GCM projections for the years 2021 to 2050 relative to the period 1961 to 1990 exhibit a relatively large increase in the precipitation anomalies over the Sahelian climate zone of Africa (IPCC, 2001; Fig 9.11), thus indicating continued intensification of the present observed anomalies shown in Fig 10c. Kinguyu et al (2000) have analyzed the recent trends of minimum and maximum surface temperatures over Eastern Africa and their results also indicated a reversal of anomalies over the region. The northern part of Eastern Africa generally indicated nighttime warming while the southern region showed cooling during the more recent period of study which extended from 1939 to 1992. To explore further the possibility that Regional-EOF2 and Global-EOF3 is associated with global warming the corresponding time series were plotted along with the global warming index (GWI) which was constructed by globally averaging surface

18

temperature data from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) archives. Further details regarding this global data set may be obtained from Folland et al (2001), Rayner et al (2003), and others. A 5-year running mean has been applied to each of the time series in Fig. 12a to filter out the high frequencies and focus on low-frequency variability. It is also important to acknowledge the caution by Xie and Arkin (1997) that the CMAP data set may be less reliable for analysis of trends. Fig. 12a shows the consistence observed among the trends associated with, (i) CMAP EOF2 (Regional-EOF2) time series, (ii) the corresponding rain gauge-based EOF (Gauge-EOF2), and (iii) the time series of the GWI suggests that the trend in this case it is physically realistic. For the pre-CMAP period similar confirmation is evident from the close agreement between gauge-based eigenmode (EOA-EOF2) time series and CRU surface temperature time series (Fig. 12b). To confirm this interpretation further we show in Fig. 13 that the spatial pattern for EOA-EOF2 based on pre-CMAP rain gauge data is consistent with the corresponding global warming CMAP eigenmodes (Regional-EOF2, Fig 5b; and Global-EOF3, Fig. 10c). As expected the CMAP pattern is smoother than the rain gauge-based EOF distribution of EOF loadings. Nevertheless, both patterns depict a distinct reversal in the sign of the rainfall anomalies over Eastern Africa. This convergence of evidence clearly confirms that Regional-EOF2 (CMAP) and GaugeEOF2 are associated with global warming climate change. 4.4 Rainfall-Circulation Relationships To investigate the rainfall-circulation relationships, we projected NCEP seasonal mean Reanalysis 850-mb wind data (2.5 resolution) on to the dominant CMAP EOFs for the Eastern African and the global analyses. The mathematical formalism for the projection of

19

the NCEP data onto a given EOF amounts to composite of the seasonal wind fields using the EOF time series amplitudes as the weights. Therefore projection of CMAP rainfall data on to a specific EOF should reproduce the original pattern for that EOF. Fig.14 displays the projection of NCEP 850mb circulation on to CMAP Regional-EOF1 (ENSO mode). Comparison of the rainfall patterns in Fig.5a and Fig.14 confirms that the projection reproduces the original EOF rainfall pattern. More importantly, projection of NCEP seasonal mean data on to a given EOF isolates the component of the circulation that is associated with the specific CMAP EOF. The low-level circulation associated with ENSO (Fig. 14) is dominated by inflow from the Indian Ocean and Congo tropical rain forest into the positive rainfall anomaly region that extends across most of Eastern Africa. A relatively smaller region of outflow associated with reduced rainfall is centered over Sudan. Comparison with the corresponding map based on projection on Global-EOF1 (Fig. 15) indicates that the easterly inflow into Eastern Africa is part of massive diffluent outflow from the maritime continent during the warm ENSO events. In the computations for constructing the projections on to the EOFs the full fields were used instead of the 9-point filtered fields used in the global EOF analysis. The consistence between CMAP rainfall and NCEP-based circulation, which are two independent data sets, is further confirmation of the authenticity of the physical existence of the modes of variability isolated by our EOF analysis in spite of the relatively short period of analysis. As noted above, the zone separating the positive and negative regions of rainfall anomalies for the global warming mode ( Regional-EOF2) splits Eastern Africa into two regions. The NCEP wind projection onto this mode (Fig. 16) indicates that the primary flow

20

that feeds the positive anomaly region over the northern part of Eastern Africa primarily emanates from the rainfall deficient southern region of Eastern Africa. 5. Conclusions This study is an investigation of the recent climate variability of Eastern Africa. The analysis was primarily based on construction of empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) of rainfall gauge data and near-global CMAP rainfall data for the period 1961-2001. Monthly average CMAP data were averaged to form 3-months averages for the months of October, November, and December, corresponding to the short rains season of Eastern Africa when the ENSO climate signal is most pronounced. Three separate EOF analyses were performed; one for the near-global domain; Two of the analyses are based on CMAP data, for the Eastern Africa and global domains, for 1979-2001. The third is an EOF analysis of rain gauge data for 1961-1990 over a smaller region of Eastern Africa located inside our primary domain. The consistency of the resulting eigenmodes among the three analyses ascertains the robustness of the results. The CMAP EOF analysis was supplemented by the projection of NCEP surface winds on to the rainfall EOFs to investigate rainfall-circulation relationships. Correlations between the rainfall eigenmodes and the UK Hadley Center globally averaged surface temperature time series were also computed to explore possible link of rainfall variability with climate global warming. For the overlapping period (1979-1990) the gauge and CMAP based EOF time series are in close agreement thus underscoring the basis for our confidence in the suitability of CMAP data as proxy for rain gauge data, particularly since the latter suffers from large gaps both in space and time over large areas of our region of interest. 21

One of our main findings is that in addition to the most dominant mode of climate variability over Eastern Africa that corresponds to ENSO and noted in many previous studies, we have isolated a separate Eastern Africa mode, in rainfall, with time evolution consistent with increasing warming of the global climate. This is the first study to definitively isolate and quantify the global warming signal in precipitation over Eastern Africa and its relationship with the dominant global teleconnection modes. The ENSO mode is associated with widespread positive rainfall anomaly conditions over the entire region of Eastern Africa, except over Sudan. In distinct contrast, the GW mode is characterized by positive rainfall anomalies over the northern sector of Eastern Africa and opposite conditions over the southern sector. The axis of the transition zone between the two polarities exhibits northwest-southeast orientation. It extends from the Uganda boarder with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the west, to the Indian Ocean coast with Eastern Africa, in the vicinity of Zanzibar, in the east. We hypothesize that there are two main factors that account for the absence of the GW mode in previous studies of Eastern Africa climate variability. The first one is that in previous investigations the period of analyses pre-date the recent years when the GW signal has become strong enough to feature as one of the dominant eigenmodes. Secondly, we find that the rain gauge data on which most of the previous investigations were based suffers from severe observational data void regions over the central region of Eastern Africa where the GW mode exhibits the largest loadings based on CMAP data. Consequently, any analyses based on rain gauge data (depending on severity of the data voids) may be incapable of faithfully represent GW climate variability. We infer that if the GW mode continues to intensify in the coming

22

decades, it may significantly modify the climatological nature of ENSO response over Eastern Africa. Comparison between the Eastern Africa and global EOF modes over Eastern Africa reveals an important dependency of the results on the spatial size of the domain over which the eigemode analysis is performed. The EOF analysis confined to Eastern Africa is in incapable of separating the variability associated with ENSO and the Indian Ocean Zonal Mode (IOZM), since the corresponding rainfall anomaly patterns are very similar. The global EOF analysis can easily distinguish between these two modes of climate variability because of the large differences between them particularly over the maritime continent. Acknowledgements This research was supported by the NSF/Climate Dynamics Program, project ATM0111581. We extend our gratitude to R. Anyah, J. Bowden, S. Fall, M. Indeje, and R. Valent, who made many valuable contributions to the work reported in this paper. The computations were performed on the NCSC and NCAR supercomputing systems. NCAR is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The post-processing of was carried out partly at the CLIMLAB Laboratory [www.climlab4.meas.ncsu.edu], at North Carolina State University.

23

References Atwoki K. 1975. A factor analytic approach for the delimitation of the rainfall regions of Uganda. Eastern Africa Geogr. Rev. 13, 9-36.Cadet and Diehl 1985. Cane M. Zebiak SE. Donald SC. 1986. Experimental forecasts for El Nio. Nature. 321, 827-702. Clark CO. Webster PJ. Cole JE. 2003. Interdecadal Variability of the Relationship between the Indian Ocean Zonal Mode and East African Coastal Rainfall Anomalies. Journal of Climate: Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 548554. Goddard L. Graham NE. 1999. Importance of the Indian Ocean for simulating rainfall anomalies over eastern and southern Africa. J. Geo. Res., 104, 19099-19116. Folland CK. Rayner NA. Brown SJ. Smith TM. Shen SSP. Parker DE. Macadam I. Jones PD. Jones RN. Nicholls N. Sexton DMH. 2001. Global temperature change and its uncertainties since 1861. Geophysical Research Letters 28, 2621-2624. Hoskins BJ. Karoly D. 1981. The steady linear response of a spherical atmosphere to thermal and orographic forcing. J. Atmos. Sci. 38, 1179-1196. IPCC 2001. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Houghton JT. Ding Y. Griggs DJ. Noguers M. van der Linden PJ. Dai X. Maskell K. Johnson CA (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 881 pp. 24

Kalnay E. Halem M. 1981. Large amplitude stationary Rossby waves in the southern hemisphere. Proc. Int. Conf. Early results of FGGE and Large scale aspects of its Monsoon Experiments, Tallahassee, ICU/WMO 3.5-3.15. Kalnay E. Kingtse M. Peagle J. 1986. Large-scale amplitude short-scale stationary Rossby waves in the southern hemisphere: Observations and mechanistic experiments to determine their origin. J. Atmos. Sci., 252-275. Kalnay E. Kanamitsu M. Kistler R. Collins W. Deaven D. Gandin L. Iredell M. Saha S. White G. Woollen J. Zhu Y. Chelliah M. Ebisuzaki W. Higgins W. Janowiak J. Mo CK. Ropelewski C. Wang J. Leetmaa A. Reynolds R, Jenne R. Joseph D. 1996. The NMC/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project". Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 437-471. Kendall M. 1980. Multivariate analysis. Charles Griffin. 210pp. Kinguyu SM. Ogallo LA. Anyamba EK. 2000. Recent trends of minimum and maximum surface temperature over Eastern Africa. Mon. Wea. Rev., 2876-2886. Nicholson SE. Entekhabi D. 1986. The quasi-periodic behavior of rainfall variability in Africa and its relationship to the Southern Oscillation. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology, 34, 331-348. Nicholson SE. Kim J. Hoopingarner J. 1988. Atlas of African rainfall and its interannual variability. Dept. of Meteorology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306. pp 237.

25

Nicholson SE. 1996. A review of Climate Dynamics and Climate Variability in Eastern Africa. The Limnology, Climatology and Paleoclimatology of the Eastern Africa Lakes. Gordon and Breach, New York, 57pp. Nicholson SE. Kim J. 1997. The relationship of the El-Nino Southern Oscillation to African rainfall. International Journal of Climatology, 17, 117-135. Nicholson SE. 1997. An Analysis of the ENSO Signal in the Tropical Atlantic and Western Indian Oceans. Int. J. Climatol., 17, 345-375. North GR. Bell TL. Cahalan RF. 1982. Sampling errors in estimation of empirical orthogonal functions. A. Meteorol. Soc. 110, 699-706. Nyenzi BS. 1992. An analysis of Interannual variability of rainfall over Eastern Africa. J. African. Met. Soc., 1, No. 1, 57-79. Ogallo LJ. Janowiak JE. Halpert MS. 1988. Teleconnections between seasonal rainfall over Eastern Africa and global sea surface temperature anomalies. J. Met. Soc. Jap., 66, 6, 807821. Ogallo LJ. 1988. Relationships between seasonal rainfall in Eastern Africa and the Southern Oscillation. Int. J. Climatol. 8, 31-43. Ogallo, LJ. Janowiak JE. Halpert MS. 1988. Teleconnection between seasonal rainfall over Eastern Africa and Global seas surface temperature anomalies. J. Met. Soc. Japan. 66, 807-822.

26

Ogallo LJ 1989: The spatial and temporal patterns of the Eastern Africa seasonal rainfall derived from principal component analysis. Int. J. Climatol. 9, 145-167. Overland JE. Preisendorfer RW. 1982. A significance test for principal components applied to a cyclone climatology. Mon. Wea. Rev. 110, 1-4. Ropelewski CF. Halpert MS. 1987. Global and regional scale precipitation patterns associated with El Nino/Southern Oscillation. Mon. Wea. Rev., 115, 1606-1626. Ropelewski CF. Halpert MS. 1989. Precipitation patterns associated with the high index phase of the Southern Oscillation. J. Climate. 2, 268-284. Rasmusson EM. T. Carpenter TH. 1982. Variation in tropical seas surface temperature and surface winds associated with the Southern Oscillation/El Nino. Mon. Wea. Rev., 110, 354-384. Rayner NA. Parker DE. Horton EB. Folland CK. Alexander LV. Rowell DP. Kaplan A. and Kent. EC. 2003. Globally complete analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice and night marine air temperature, 1871-2000. J. Geophys. Res. (in press). Saji NH. Goswami BN. Vinayachandran PN. Yamagata T. 1999. A dipole mode in the tropical Indian Ocean, Nature, 401, 360-363. Semazzi FHM. Indeje M. 1999. Inter-seasonal variability of ENSO rainfall signal over Africa. J. Afri. Meteorol. Soc. 4, 81-94.

27

Semazzi FHM. Song Y. 2001. A GCM study of deforestation induced climate change in Africa. Climate Research. Climate Research, Vol. 17: 169-182. Trenberth KE. Hoar TJ. 1996. The 1990-1995 El Nio-Southern Oscillation Event: Longest on record. Geophys. Res. Lttrs., 23, 57-60. Tyson, P. D., 1986: Climatic change and variability in Southern Africa. Oxford University Press, Cape Town (220pp). Xie P. Arkin PA. 1996a. Global precipitation: a 17-year monthly analysis based on gauge observations, satellite estimates, and numerical model outputs. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 78, 2539-2558. Xie P. Arkin PA. 1996b. Analyses of Global Monthly Precipitation Using Gauge Observations, Satellite Estimates, and Numerical Model Predictions. J. Climate, 9, 840 858. Xie P. Arkin PA. 1997. Global Precipitation: A 17-Year Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations, Satellite Estimates and Numerical Model Outputs. BAMS, 78. Yu LS. Rienecker MM. 1999. Mechanisms for the Indian Ocean warming during the 19971998 El Nino. Geophysical Res. Lett., 6, 735-738. Yu LS. Rienecker MM. 2000. Indian Ocean warming of 1997-1998. J. Geo. Res., 105, 16923-16939. Webster PJ. Moore AM. Loschnigg PJ. Leben RR. 1999. Coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics in the Indian Ocean during 1997-1998. Nature, 401, 356-360.

28

29

Figure captions Fig. 1. Global Climatic Research Unit (CRU) surface temperature averages. Fig. 2. Orientation map for Eastern Africa, (a) primary domain for the CMAP regional analysis, and (b) smaller inner domain over which gauge data was analyzed. Figs. 3. (a-c) CMAP climatology over Eastern Africa for the months of October through December, which corresponds to the short rains season. Contour interval is 15mm and values greater than 30mm are shaded; (d-f) rain-gauge monthly climatologies for October through December. Units, mm/month. Fig. 4 Eigenvalue histogram for the Eastern Africa CMAP rainfall EOF analysis. Fig. 5. Spatial pattern for CMAP, (a) Regional-EOF1, (b) Regional-EOF2. Dashed/solid contours represent negative/positive values; contour interval is 0.2 and the contour in the unshaded areas corresponds to zero EOF loading. Fig. 6. Time series for CMAP, (a) Regional-EOF1, (b) Regional-EOF2. Fig.7 Distribution of the 144 rain gauge stations over the inner domain shown in Fig.1. Fig.8 T ime series for Regional-EOF1 (based on CMAP data - solid) & Gauge-EOF1 (based on rain gauge data - dashed). Fig. 9 Eigenvalue histogram for the near-global CMAP rainfall EOF analysis.

30

Fig. 10. Spatial pattern for CMAP, (a) Global-EOF1, (b) Global-EOF2, and (c) GlobalEOF3. Dashed/solid contours represent negative/positive values; contour interval is 0.2 and the contour in the unshaded areas corresponds to zero EOF loading. Fig. 11. Time series for CMAP, (a) Global-EOF1, (b) Global-EOF2, and (c) GlobalEOF3. Fig. 12 Smoothed time series: (a) Regional-EOF2 (diamond), Global-EOF3 (square), Global Warming Index (GWI; triangle); (b) Gauge-EOF2 (diamond), and Global Warming Index (GWI; square). Fig. 13 Spatial pattern for rain gauge-based Gauge-EOF2. Fig. 14 Projection of NCEP mean winds at 850mb on to Regional-EOF1. Fig. 15 Projection of NCEP seasonal mean wind circulation at 850mb on to Global-EOF1. Contour interval is 0.2; dark/light shading represent positive/negative; values approximately 0 are not shaded. Fig. 16 Projection of NCEP seasonal mean wind circulation at 850mb on to RegionalEOF2. Table 1: Cross correlation among Global EOF1 (G1), Global-EOF2 (G2), Global-EOF3 (G3), Regional-EOF1 (R1), Regional-EOF2 (R2), based on CMAP rainfall data; Global Warming Index (HT), and the combined Global-EOF1 and Global-EOF2 time series (G1+2).

31

Table.-1
G1
G1 G2 G3 R1 R2 HT G1+2
1.00 0.00 0.00

G2
0.00 1.00 0.00 0.55 0.64 0.64

G3
0.00 0.00 1.00 0.53 0.48 0.00

R1
0.69 0.57 -0.14 1.00 0.00 0.23 0.90

R2
-0.16 0.55 0.53 0.00 1.00 0.70 0.23

HT
0.06 0.64 0.48 0.23 0.70 1.00 0.46

G1+2
0.77 0.64 0.00

0.69
-0.16 0.06 0.77

0.57 -0.14

0.90
0.23 0.46 1.00

Table 1: Cross correlation among Global EOF1 (G1), Global-EOF2 (G2), Global-EOF3 (G3), Regional-EOF1 (R1), Regional-EOF2 (R2), based on CMAP rainfall data; Global Warming Index (HT), and the combined Global-EOF1 and Global-EOF2 time series (G1+2).

CMAP data analysis: 1979-2001

1.5

Tempearture Anomaly (K)

Gauge data analysis: 1961-1990

0.5

-0.5

overlap of analyses: 1979-2001

-1

-1.5 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Year
FIG. 1. Global Climatic Research Unit (CRU) surface temperature averages.

Sudan

Eriteria Djibouti Ethiopia

Somalia Uganda Rwanda Burundi D.R.C Malawi Mozambique Kenya Tanzania

Zambia

FIG. 2. Orientation map for Eastern Africa, (a) primary domain for the CMAP regional analysis, and (b) smaller inner domain over which gauge data was analyzed.

4N

2N

0N

2S

4S

< 50 50 - 100
6S

100 - 150 150 - 200 > 200

8S

10S

26E

28E

30E

32E

34E

36E

38E

40E

42E

44E

4N

2N

0N

2S

4S

< 50 50 - 100 100 - 150 150 - 200 200 - 250 250 - 300 > 300

6S

8S

10S

26E

28E

30E

32E

34E

36E

38E

40E

42E

44E

4N

2N

0N

2S

4S

< 50 50 - 100
6S

100 - 150 150 - 200 200 - 250 250 - 300 > 300

8S

10S

26E

28E

30E

32E

34E

36E

38E

40E

42E

44E

Figs. 3. (a-c) CMAP climatology over Eastern Africa for the months of October through December, which corresponds to the short rains season. Contour interval is 15mm and values greater than 30mm are shaded; (d-f ) rain-gauge monthly climatologies for October through December. Units, mm/month.

35

30

25

% variance
% Variance

20

15

10

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

EOF EOF
Fig. 4 Eigenvalue histogram for the Eastern Africa CMAP rainfall EOF analysis.

Regional-EOF1

a
Regional-EOF2

b
Fig. 5. Spatial pattern for CMAP, (a) Regional-EOF1, (b) Regional-EOF2. Dashed/solid contours represent negative/positive values; contour interval is 0.2 and the contour in the unshaded areas corresponds to zero EOF loading.

Regional-EOF1

-1

-2 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999

Year
2

Regional-EOF2

1.5

0.5

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999

Year
Fig. 6. Time series for CMAP, (a) Regional-EOF1, (b) Regional-EOF2.

6N

4N

2N

0N

2S

4S

6S

8S

10S

12S 24E 26E 28E 30E 32E 34E 36E 38E 40E 42E 44E 46E

Fig.7 Distribution of the 144 rain gauge stations over the inner domain shown in Fig.1.

EOF Amplitude

-1

Gauge-EOF1 -2 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 Regional-EOF1 2000

Year
Fig.8 Time series for Regional-EOF1 (based on CMAP data - solid) & Gauge-EOF1 (based on rain gauge data - dashed).

14

12

10

% variance
% Variance

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

EOF
Fig. 9 Eigenvalue histogram for the near-global CMAP rainfall EOF analysis.

Rossby-like wave train

Fig. 10. Spatial pattern for CMAP, (a) Global-EOF1, (b) Global-EOF2, and (c) Global-EOF3. Dashed/solid contours represent negative/positive values; contour interval is 0.2 and the contour in the unshaded areas corresponds to zero EOF loading.

2.5

Global-EOF1

1.5

0.5

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999

Year Global-EOF2

-1

-2

-3

-4 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999

Year Global-EOF3

1.5

0.5

-0.5

-1

-1.5

-2

-2.5 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999

c
Year
Fig. 11. Time series for CMAP, (a) Global-EOF1, (b) Global-EOF2, and (c) GlobalEOF3.

1.5

0.5

-0.5

-1 Regional-EOF2 Global-EOF3 -1.5 1979 1984 1989 1994 HadCRUT 1999

Year
1.5

0.5

-0.5

Gauge-EOF2 -1 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 HadCRUT 1990

Year
Fig. 12 Smoothed time series: (a) Regional-EOF2 (diamond), Global-EOF3 (square), Global Warming Index (GWI; triangle); (b) Gauge-EOF2 (diamond), and Global Warming Index (GWI; square).

4N

Gauge-EOF2

2N

0N

2S

4S

< -2 -2 -1 -1 -0.2 -0.2 0.2 0.2 1 >1

6S

8S

10S

26E

28E

30E

32E

34E

36E

38E

40E

42E

44E

Fig. 13 Spatial pattern for rain gauge-based Gauge-EOF2.

Fig. 14 Projection of NCEP mean winds at 850mb on to Regional-EOF1.

Fig. 15 Projection of NCEP seasonal mean wind circulation at 850mb on to Global-EOF1. Contour interval is 0.2; dark/light shading represent positive/negative; values

Fig. 16 Projection of NCEP seasonal mean wind circulation at 850mb on to Regional-EOF2