Investigation of the pressing impacts of climate change on drought is vital for sustainable societal and ecosystem functioning. The magnitude of how much the drought will change and the way how droughts would affect society and the environment are inadequately addressed over East Africa. This study aimed at assessing future drought changes using an ensemble of five Global Climate Models (GCMs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) over East Africa. To this end, drought characteristics were investigated under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 in the near term (the 2020s; 2011–2040), midcentury (2050s; 2041–2070), and end of century (2080s; 2071–2,100). The changes of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation‐Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) were first compared, and the SPEI was used for measuring future droughts as it showed stronger changes due to its inclusion of temperature effects. Drought area in East Africa is likely to increase at the end of the 21st century by 16%, 36%, and 54% under RCP 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5, respectively, with the areas affected by extreme drought increasing more rapidly than severe and moderate droughts. Spatially, drought event, duration, frequency and intensity would increase in Sudan, Tanzania, Somalia, and South Sudan, but generally decrease in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopian highlands. Results also confirm that drought changes over East Africa follow the “dry gets drier and wet gets wetter” paradigm. The findings provide important guidance for improving identification of causes, minimizing the impacts and enhancing the resilience to droughts in East Africa.

中文翻译：

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气候变化对东非干旱模式的预计影响

调查气候变化对干旱的紧迫影响对于可持续的社会和生态系统功能至关重要。在东非，干旱的变化幅度以及干旱对社会和环境的影响方式未得到适当解决。这项研究旨在使用东非耦合模式比对项目（CMIP5）中的五个全球气候模式（GCM）来评估未来的干旱变化。为此，在近期（2020年代； 2011-2040年），本世纪中叶（2050年代； 2041-2070年）和本世纪末（2080年代），根据代表性浓度途径（RCP）2.6、4.5和8.5对干旱特征进行了研究。 ; 2071–2,100）。首先比较了标准降水指数（SPI）和标准降水-蒸散指数（SPEI）的变化，SPEI由于包含温度效应而表现出更强的变化，因此被用于测量未来的干旱。在RCP 2.6、4.5和8.5下，东非的干旱地区到21世纪末可能会分别增长16％，36％和54％，受极端干旱影响的地区的增长速度比严重干旱的地区要快。中度干旱。在空间上，干旱事件，持续时间，频率和强度在苏丹，坦桑尼亚，索马里和南苏丹将增加，但在肯尼亚，乌干达和埃塞俄比亚高地普遍减少。结果还证实，东非的干旱变化遵循“干变干而湿变湿”的范式。研究结果为改善原因识别，最小化影响和增强东非干旱抗灾能力提供了重要指导。