In this study, the projections of daily rainfall from an ensemble mean of 20 global climate models (GCMs) are used to examine projected trends in heavy rainfall distribution over Central Africa (CA), under the representative concentration pathway 8.5. For this purpose, two analyses periods of 40-years have been selected (2006-2045 and 2056-2095) to compute trends in the 90th and 99th percentiles of the daily rainfall distributions. We found that large increase trend is mostly found in the 99th percentile of rainfall events, over southern Chad, northern Cameroon, northern Zambia, and in the Great Lakes Area. This can be attributed to the increase of moisture convergence intensified by the presence of the Congo Basin rainforest. It is also shown that the largest number of GCMs with a trend of the same sign as the average trend is observed over the above regions. It is thus clear that the projected increase trends in heavy rainfall events may further worse floods which are real problems in the CA countries. Therefore, strong subregional policies are needed to help design effective adaptation and mitigation measures for the region's countries.

Spatial distribution of the seasonal changes (in %) between future and historical periods (2021–2050 minus 1981–2010); for total wetday rainfall amount (PRCPTOT; first row), wet‐day frequency (RR1; second row), wet‐day intensity (SDII; third row), dry spells (CDD; fourth row) and total wet‐day rainfall above the 95th percentile (R95PTOT; fifth row), from RCM ensemble mean experiments over Cameroon. Stippling indicates areas where the change is significant (i.e. where at least 80% of simulations agree on the sign of the change).