Regional Climate Models in the Simulation of the Drought of the 1970’s and 1980’s Years in Senegal (In West Africa)

Abstract

West Africa was hit by an unprecedented drought in the 1970’s and 1980’s years, with dramatic consequences for surface and groundwater resources. In the context of climate change, there are many studies for the prediction of the increase in the occurrence of these droughts. To predict this situation in the Senegalese region, it is necessary to use regional climate models, which carrying out the study. This work deals with the interest to examine the capacity of the RCMs (regional climate models) in order to reproduce the deficit on the 1970’s year rainfall in Senegal. In this work, we used daily precipitation data from five (5) regional climate models to characterize the droughts in Senegal by using the SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index) on different time scales (3, 6, 12 and 24 months). For this purpose, the index was calculated over two distinct periods: 1951-1969 and 1970-1990. The results show that the period 1970-1990 was drier than the period 1951-1969. For the zonal average, the results show that the North of Senegal was more affected by this deficit rainfall than the South part. The analysis of the interannual variability of rainfall for some stations in Senegal shows that the drought did not start at the same time throughout the zone.