Topic > Climate Change Essay - 1224

Understanding rainfall variability and trends in Ghana is critical to several socioeconomic activities, such as agriculture and hydropower, the country's main source of energy. Several studies have analyzed rainfall trends in West Africa, identifying a downward trend for the period 1970-2000. A detailed seasonal analysis of rainfall variability and trends from quality-controlled data is still needed in Ghana (Manzanas, 2014). A "wet" period from the 1950s to the early 1970s was followed by a dry period characterized by the two great droughts of 1973 and 1984. Between these two periods, the reduction in precipitation was notable. In the Sahel region, the reduction in precipitation was not as strong, but it was felt more acutely. This vision obviously has some limitations, due to the fixed comparative periods. For the Sahel countries, for example, drought periods lasted from the early 1970s until the early 1990s. Precipitation has increased, although it remains highly variable (Gnisci, 2006). Ghana has different rainfall patterns across the country, from the coast in the south to the Sahel region in the north. These regimes are defined primarily by the northward and southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which brings Africa