Climate change and trend analysis of temperature: the case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background This paper presents the trend analysis of temperature and the effect of climate variation in the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The paper seeks to provide up-to-date information for the better management of climate change in the city. The analysis is based on the temperature difference in the city over two stations—Bole and Entoto. The overall purpose of this study is to investigate the possible trend of temperature variation as well as the effect of climate change in the study area.

Method The Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test and Sen's slope estimate were employed to find the nature of the temperature trend and significance level in the city.

Results It was found that the MK2/MK3 statistic (Z) value for minimum, maximum and average temperatures for Bole station are 6.21/5.99, 2.49/2.6, and 6.09/6.14 respectively. The positive Kendall's Z value shows an upward trend and implies an increasing trend over time. This indicates a significant increase in the trend at a 5% level of significance since the significance level (alpha) is greater than the computed p-value (0.05 > p-values (0.0001)). Whereas for Entoto station, the MK1 statistic (Z) results are 1.64 for minimum, while the MK2/MK3 static (Z) are 0.71/0.65 for the maximum, and 0.17/1.04 for average temperature, and this positive value shows an indicator of an increasing trend. However, the increase is not significant at the 5% significant level since the computed p-value is larger than the significant level (alpha = 0.05).

Conclusions There is a tendency of temperature increments in Bole station. This could be due to the influence of climate change which can lead to weather extremes in the capital city. Therefore, the study recommends that the variability of temperature needs further monitoring technique, and there is a need to consider the increasing temperature trend to minimize its effects on human health.