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Structural Changes in Temperature and Precipitation in MENA Countries

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Abstract

This paper evaluates the extent of climate variability in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region using time series structural change tests. The MENA region is highly susceptible to climate change, being one of the driest and most water-scarce regions in the world. The study aims to identify structural breaks in temperature and precipitation time series from 1901 to 2012. Specifically, a statistical analysis is performed based on a structural change model (Bai and Perron 1998, 2003a) for temperature and precipitation across 19 countries. The results indicate significant structural changes in temperature and precipitation patterns during the observation period, and suggest that climate variability has indeed begun to occur in all study area, with 1990 marking a turning point in terms of global warming. North African countries, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates experienced a large number of breaks in temperature variables between 1901 and 2012, while other countries experienced fewer breaks. With regards to the seasonal aspect of precipitation, the individual rainfall Seasonality Index results demonstrate strong seasonal variability of rainfall from one year to another. Results show that rainfall in MENA countries is irregular throughout the year and that it ranges from seasonal to extremely seasonal throughout the study period. These findings have important implications for water resources management, agriculture, human health, and ecosystems in the region.

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Data availability

The authors declare that the data used in the research are available and without access restrictions.

Notes

  1. However, we could not include Bahrain in this study due to the lack of climate data and information for this country. We focus only on the 19 countries for which climate data are available for the study period.

  2. We have limited our study to the period 1901–2012 due to the unavailability of data for some variables (maximum and minimum temperature, temperature and precipitations anomalies as well as rainfall seasonality index) beyond this period, in another database as robust as those of the GCMon (Camarillo-Naranjo et al. 2019), notably the data come from the TS3.21 version of the CRU database (Harris et al. 2014).

  3. While studying changes in the mean, we subdivided the period under study into four 30-year subperiods: P1= from 1901 to 1930, P2= from 1931 to 1960, P3= from 1961 to 1990 and P4= from 1991 to 2012.

  4. We study the variation by a difference in the mean between the subperiods (P2–P1) and (P4–P3).

  5. We define four seasons in the year: Winter (January, February, March); Spring (April, May, June); Summer (July, August, September); Fall (October, November, December).

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Funding

Raja Chakir acknowledges financial support from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche as part of Cland Institut de convergence (ANR-16-CONV-0003).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, Economics and Social Sciences-Souissi, LEAM, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Rabat, Morocco

    Hassan Amouzay & Ahmed El Ghini

  2. University of Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, INRAE, Paris Saclay Applied Economics, Palaiseau, France

    Raja Chakir

  3. University of Lille, CNRS, UMR 8524-Laboratoire Paul Painlevé, INRIA-MODAL, Lille, 59000, France

    Sophie Dabo-Niang

Authors
  1. Hassan Amouzay
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  2. Raja Chakir
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  3. Sophie Dabo-Niang
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  4. Ahmed El Ghini
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Correspondence to Ahmed El Ghini.

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Appendices

Appendix: Tables

See Tables 3, 4, 5, 6.

Table 3 Number of breaks associated with the five variables over the entire period
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Table 4 Year of breaks associated with the five variables over the entire period
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Table 5 Mean annual rainfall, rainfall anomalies and coefficient of variation values (%)
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Table 6 Mean individual seasonality index for all countries for the period 1901–2012
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B Appendix: Figures

See Figs. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21.

Fig. 8
figure 8

Temperature variations between 30-year period averages in the MENA countries (1901–2012). P1 = 1901–1930, P2 = 1931–1960, P3 = 1961–1990 and P4 = 1991–2012)

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Fig. 9
figure 9

Rainfall variations between 30-year period averages in the MENA countries (1901–2012). P1 = 1901–1930, P2=1931–1960, P3 = 1961–1990 and P4 = 1991–2012)

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Fig. 10
figure 10

Mean seasonal temperature variations between 30-year period averages in the MENA countries (1901–2012). P1 = 1901–1930, P2 = 1931–1960, P3 = 1961–1990 and P4= 1991–2012)

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Fig. 11
figure 11

Mean seasonal rainfall variations between 30-year period averages in the MENA countries (1901–2012). P1 = 1901–1930, P2 = 1931–1960, P3 = 1961–1990 and P4 = 1991–2012)

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Fig. 12
figure 12

Annual mean temperature in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 13
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Annual maximum temperature in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 14
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Annual minimum temperature in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 15
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Annual temperature anomalies in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 16
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Annual rainfall in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 17
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Annual rainfall anomalies in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 18
figure 18

Rainfall Seasonality Index in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 19
figure 19

Endogenous detection of structural breaks in annual maximum temperature in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 20
figure 20

Endogenous detection of structural breaks in annual minimum temperature in the MENA countries during the period from 1901 to 2012

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Fig. 21
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Endogenous detection of structural breaks in Rainfall seasonality index in the MENA countries from 1901 to 2012

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Amouzay, H., Chakir, R., Dabo-Niang, S. et al. Structural Changes in Temperature and Precipitation in MENA Countries. Earth Syst Environ 7, 359–380 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41748-023-00344-2

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