In 2011, drought in the Horn of Africa again made news headlines. This study aims to quantify the meteorological component of this and other drought episodes in Ethiopia since 1971. A monthly precipitation data set for 14 homogeneous rainfall zones was constructed based on 174 gauge observations. As a measure of drought, the Standardized Precipitation Index was calculated on seasonal, annual and biannual timescales for each zone. The results point to 2009 as a year of exceptionally widespread drought. All zones experienced some degree of drought at the annual scale, although in most zones, previous droughts were more extreme. On the national level, 2009 was the second driest year in the period, surpassed only by the historic drought year 1984. Linear regression analysis indicates a general decline in precipitation in southern Ethiopia, during both February-May and June-September. In the central and northern highlands, the trend analysis did not provide evidence of similar tendencies. However, spring droughts have appeared more frequently in all parts of Ethiopia during the last 10-15 years than during the previous decades.

ABSTRACT:The Ethiopian summer rains occur as air masses of various origins converge above the Ethiopian plateau. In this study, the relative importance of different moisture transport branches has been estimated using the Lagrangian trajectory model FLEXPART, and ERA-Interim reanalysis data, to backtrack air reaching the northern Ethiopian highlands in July-August 1998-2008. The Indian Ocean, the Congo Basin and the Red Sea were found to be important moisture source regions; for air from the Indian Ocean aided by a considerable moisture uptake along routes across the African continent. The following main transport branches were identified: (1) Flow from the Gulf of Guinea, (2) Flow from the Indian Ocean, and (3) Flow from the north; from the Mediterranean region across the Red Sea and the Arabian Peninsula. The largest contribution to the moisture transport into, and release of moisture within, the northern Ethiopian highlands, was associated with air traveling from the Indian Ocean and from the north. This was partly due to the relatively high mean specific humidity of this air, and partly because a large proportion of the air that reaches the highlands, follows these routes. As a total, the amount of moisture brought into the highlands from the north is 46% higher than from the south, whereas the contribution to moisture release within the highlands is about equal for air coming from the south and from the north. While previous studies have emphasized the importance of the Gulf of Guinea, we find that despite the high specific humidity of the low-level flow of air from the Gulf of Guinea, the amount of moisture carried into and released within the northern Ethiopian highlands through this branch, is much smaller than from the other branches -about 1/8 of that from the Indian Ocean. This is due to the fact that normally only a small proportion of the air reaching Ethiopia comes from the Gulf of Guinea.

It is commonly understood that a potential for skillful climate prediction resides in the ocean. It nevertheless remains unresolved to what extent variable ocean heat is imprinted on the atmosphere to realize its predictive potential over land. Here we assess from observations whether anomalous heat in the Gulf Stream's northern extension provides predictability of northwestern European and Arctic climate. We show that variations in ocean temperature in the high latitude North Atlantic and Nordic Seas are reflected in the climate of northwestern Europe and in winter Arctic sea ice extent. Statistical regression models show that a significant part of northern climate variability thus can be skillfully predicted up to a decade in advance based on the state of the ocean. Particularly, we predict that Norwegian air temperature will decrease over the coming years, although staying above the long-term (1981–2010) average. Winter Arctic sea ice extent will remain low but with a general increase towards 2020.

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