Spatial and temporal variability of annual rainfall in the Lake Chad basin during the 20th century

The study of changes in annual rainfall in the Lake Chad basin during the 20th century is based on the analysis of 47 stations, i.e. a total of about 1600 station-years for the time series with more than 25 years of data. As previously observed in western and Sahelian Africa, robust tests of shift in time series identify a significant change in mean from the beginning of the 1960s between the latitudes 11 and 13 degree N, and a little later in this decade for the northern stations. The analysis of decadal rainfall shows that the 1950s decade was very humid and the next three decades were drier. These dry conditions were more and more severe until the 1980s. Data available after 1990 do not show any inversion in the trend. The annual rainfall decreases from south to north, and the regional gradient has changed from 1.5 mm km super(-1) in the 1950s to 1.2 mm km super(-1) in the 1980s between the latitudes 10 and 14 degree N.