Articles | Volume 20, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3789-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3789-2016
Research article
 | 
13 Sep 2016
Research article |  | 13 Sep 2016

Synchrony of trend shifts in Sahel boreal summer rainfall and global oceanic evaporation, 1950–2012

Alima Diawara, Yoshihiro Tachibana, Kazuhiro Oshima, Hatsumi Nishikawa, and Yuta Ando

Data sets

Global Land Precipitation: A 50-yr Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.precl.html) M. Chen, P. Xie, J. E. Janowiak, P. A. and Arkin https://doi.org/10.1175/1525-7541(2002)003<0249:GLPAYM>2.0.CO;2

GPCC Full Data Reanalysis Version 6.0 at 2.5º: Monthly Land-Surface Precipitation from Rain-Gauges built on GTS-based and Historic Data U. Schneider, A. Becker, P. Finger, A. Meyer-Christoffer, B. Rudolf, and M. Ziese https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD\_GPCC/FD\_M\_V7\_250

Terrestrial Air Temperature and Precipitation: Monthly and Annual Time Series (1950-1999) C. J. Willmott and K. Matsuura http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/README.ghcn_ts2.html

Improvements to NOAA's Historical Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (1880-2006) (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v3.html) T. M. Smith, R. W. Reynolds, T. C. Peterson, and J. Lawrimore https://doi.org/10.1175/2007JCLI2100.1

Interdecadal changes of 30-yr SST normals during 1871-2000 (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v3.html) Y. Xue, T. M. Smith, R. W. and Reynolds https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442-16.10.1601

The ERA-40 re-analysis (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/reanalysis/ecmwf/era40/daily_sfc.html) S. M. Uppala, P. W. K{\AA}llberg, A. J. Simmons, U. Andrae, V. D. C. Bechtold, M. Fiorino, J. K. Gibson, J. Haseler, A. Hernandez, G. A. Kelly, X. Li, K. Onogi, S. Saarinen, N. Sokka, R. P. Allan, E. Andersson, K. Arpe, M. A. Balmaseda, A. C. M. Beljaars, L. V. D. Berg, J. Bidlot, N. Bormann, S. Caires, F. Chevallier, A. Dethof, M. Dragosavac, M. Fisher, M. Fuentes, S. Hagemann, E. H\'{o}lm, B. J. Hoskins, L. Isaksen, P. A. E. M. Janssen, R. Jenne, A. P. Mcnally, J.-F. Mahfouf, J.-J. Morcrette, N. A. Rayner, R. W. Saunders, P. Simon, A. Sterl, K. E. Trenberth, A. Untch, D. Vasiljevic, P. Viterbo, and J. Woollen https://doi.org/10.1256/qj.04.176

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Short summary
The western African Sahel region has been one of the most important research areas for studying climatic variability due to its fragile climate conditions. Between 1950 and 2012, summer rainfall in the Sahel changed from a multi-decadal decreasing trend to an increasing trend (positive trend shift) in the mid-1980s. We found that this trend shift was synchronous with similar trend shifts in global oceanic evaporation and in land precipitation on all continents except the Americas.