Abstract
The Horn of Africa (HOA) is one of the most drought-prone regions in the world with many arid and semiarid areas, and even some extremely arid areas. Primarily affected by the marine continental climate systems, this zone is really sensitive to global warming. Drought is the main type of natural disaster affecting this region, which triggers famine, civil conflict, and even deterioration of food security. The present study examined changes in droughts in the HOA during 1979–2019 based on Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Results show that frequency, duration, and intensity of droughts exhibited an increasing trend over the past decades. Moreover, in October to December (called locate “short rains”) 2016 and March to May (called locate “long rains”) 2017, the HOA experienced the most severe drought. Based on Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) fitting, the 2016/2017 SPEI index corresponds to a drought that occurs every 250 years in the observational records. However, considering the precipitation in short rains of 2016 (long rains of 2017) was only 27.1% (11.8%) less than normal, it is hard to explain the formation of this extreme drought only from precipitation anomalies. Further statistical result shows that the evaporation in 2016/2017 corresponds to a 1-in-131 years event in the observed records. The abnormally high temperature (1.02 °C higher than normal) as well as the greatest potential evaporation since 1979 are the more important causes for the formation of drought. Thus, the extreme drought in 2016/2017, probably caused by the combined effect of dry condition and high temperature simultaneously, and the latter, played a leading role. In other words, droughts can be exacerbated by the co-occurrence of extreme high temperature. With continuous warming caused by anthropogenic activities in the next decades, the Horn of Africa may be a hotspot of the compound droughts and, therefore, it is especially important to considering the combined impacts from less precipitation and high temperature when predicting the future drought trend and making adaptation measures.
Highlights
Today, climate warming is a global concern
Comparing with other tropical regions, the uniqueness of precipitation in Horn of Africa (HOA) with significant spatial heterogeneity in its climate characteristics can be seen from Figure 2
Trends analyses show that the increasing trend of temperature of the HOA is much more significant than the decreasing trend of precipitation in long rains and the increasing trend of precipitation in short rains
Summary
Climate warming is a global concern. According to the IPCC-AR6, since 1970, global surface temperatures have risen faster than in any other 50-year period for at least the past 2000 years. Drought in 1983/1984 led to a civil conflict and triggered a famine in northern Ethiopia and Sudan [22] The rainfall deficit both in short rains in 1991 and long rains in 1992, as a “consecutive drought” event, contributed to the deterioration of food security. Another consecutive drought event during the growing season in 2010/2011 was estimated to be the worst in the last 60 years [23,24,25], resulting in declines in agriculture yields, high rates of animal mortality, severe food shortages for 12 million people, and severe humanitarian crisis [26]. Extreme drought occurred frequently under the background of global warming, and events of HOA.
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