Recent observed country‐wide climate trends in Morocco

Abstract

In this study, we evaluate trends in precipitation and temperature and their related extreme indices in Morocco based on a set of National Climate Monitoring Products defined the by the commission for climatology of the WMO. We use daily precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature data from 30 meteorological stations distributed throughout the country and covering the period from 1960 to 2016. Statistically significant increasing trends in warm temperature events and a tendency towards decreasing cold extremes at both daytime and night are depicted across the country consistent with the generalized observed global warming. We found that the daily temperature in Morocco has risen with higher rates than the global scale. The depicted trend of 0.33 C per decade corresponds to a warming of approximately 1.1 C for the period 1984-2016. The annual mean precipitation and the standardized drought index show less spatially consistent tendencies despite the predominance of negative trends. Considering the effect of the warming in the analysis of drought evolution using the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index, we detected statistically significant trends towards dryer conditions in different regions of the northern half of the country. Analysis of the relationship between precipitation

Changes in mean and extreme temperature and precipitation events from different weighted multi-model ensembles over the northern half of Morocco

“…Changes' variation for WSDI is larger than for CSDI (Fig. 3b, e) and we can notice higher amplitudes for WSDI, suggesting that the warming will gain more from high temperature events than cold ones, consistent with observed trends in Driouech et al (2020a). Changes' amplitudes are even higher for NEXGDDP.…”

“…Morocco is one of the Mediterranean and North African countries where observed global warming impacts are the most noticeable (Lelieveld et al 2016;Sowers et al 2011;Waha et al 2017). Analysis of trends in precipitation and temperature in Morocco have indicated a tendency towards warmer and dryer conditions (Donat et al 2014;Driouech et al 2013Driouech et al , 2020aFilahi et al, 2015;Sippel et al 2017;Tramblay et al 2013). Furthermore, most of the state-ofthe-art models agree in projecting an increase in mean temperatures and a decrease in total annual precipitation amounts over the country (Driouech and El Rhaz 2017;IPCC, 2013IPCC, , 2018Polade et al 2017), consistent with the whole Mediterranean region.…”

Potential of Arabic documentary sources for reconstructing past climate in the western Mediterranean region from AD 680 to 1815

“…Recent studies for SW Europe do not show long term trends in precipitation nor in drought (Peña-Angulo et al, 2020; Schilling et al, 2012; Vicente-Serrano et al, 2021). Less studies are available for Morocco; they report a trend to warmer and drier conditions (Driouech et al, 2020; Tramblay et al, 2013), but trends do not seem robust and highly depend on the considered area and time-window. More detailed descriptions of the climate of the region can be found in García-Herrera and Barriopedro (2018), Lionello et al (2006) and Lionello (2012).…”

“…The alternation of violent flood episodes caused by torrential rainfall with dry sequences of varying length is a characteristic of the area (Xoplaki et al, 2012). The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Mediterranean Oscillation (Conte, 1989) are the main large-scale climatic patterns affecting the region (Driouech et al, 2020; Knippertz et al, 2003; Tramblay et al, 2013). However, the intricate orography and coastline modulate these large-scale influences and lead to a complex spatial precipitation pattern.…”

Assessment of the relative impacts of climate changes and anthropogenic forcing on Ouergha watershed hydrology (North-East of Morocco)

“…In the future, Morocco is expected to face a major water shortfall prompted by expansion in demand for water, reduction in precipitation induced by climate change, or both. Evidence from historical climatic data suggested some significant trends (upward) in extreme and mean temperature [3]. These climatic changes will extremely affect water availability, including surface water, groundwater and water yield, which subsequently will impact hydrologic flows into streams, lakes and dams [4].…”