Analysis of Extreme Temperature Variability in Rwanda

Abstract

The temperature is one of the most important factors in weather and climate forecasting. Studying its behaviour is crucial to understanding climate variability, which could vary spatially and temporally at local, regional, and global scales. Several recent studies on air temperature findings show that the Earth' s near surface air temperature increased between 0.6 °C and 0.8 °C throughout the twentieth century. Using temperature records from ten meteorological stations, this study examined climate variability in Rwanda from the 1930s to 2014. The air temperature data were collected from Meteo Rwanda. Before making the analysis, the authors used software, such as Excel 2007 and INSTAT to control the quality of the raw data. The analysis of maxima and minima indicated that the trends of maximum air temperature were positive and significant at height meteorological stations, whereas the trends for minimum air temperature were found to be at 10 meteorological stations. For all parameters analysed, Kigali Airport meteorological station indicated the higher significance of the trends. The majority of meteorological stations showed an increase in both hot days and nights, confirming Rwanda' s warming over time. The analysis of average seasonal air temperature showed almost similar trends even though not all were significant. This similarity in trends could be attributed to the fact that Rwanda' s short and long dry seasons coincide with rainy seasons.