Assessment of Historical and Future Climate Trends in Kapoeta Region of South Sudan

Abstract

The future climate situations depend on greenhouse gas emissions in the Kapoeta region of South Sudan. The study determined historical (1984-2016) and projected (2021-2050) climate trends in the Kapoeta region. Descriptive and non-parametric statistics, including the Man-Kendall-tau and Sein's s-Slope estimator in XLSTAT 2016, were employed to project historical (1984-2016) and future (2021-2050) climate trends. The study was conducted in Greater Kapoeta, Eastern Equatoria State of South Sudan in 2016. The rainfall and temperature projections were presented under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 from 2021 to 2050 using the Norwegian Earth System Model One (NorESM1). Evidently, the annual rainfall amount declined (P = 0.05) by 0.32 mm from 1984 to 2016, and its monthly patterns changed from unimodal (1984-1994) to bimodal patterns (1995-2016). Similarly, the maximum annual temperature increased significantly (P=0.05) by 0.061 °C, and the monthly temperature increased significantly (P=0.05) in March, April, May, July, and October from 1984 to 2016. Although not significant (P=0.06), the annual rainfall projection shows a rise of 2.912 mm under RCP8.5 and a decrease of 3.080 mm under RCP4.5 from August-December between 2021 and 2025. The peak monthly rainfall amounts of 111 mm and 89 mm will occur in November under RCP8.5 and RCP4.5 from 2021-2050. The study anticipates a significant (P=0.05) increase in annual temperature by 0.016 °C and 0.028 °C, and average monthly temperature increase from January-May under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 from 2021-2050. The peak maximum average monthly temperature will reach 28.4 °C and 28.3 °C in March under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 from 2021-2050. Ultimately, climate trends increased (1984-2016) with an anticipated future increase (2021-2050) that requires awareness of the pastoral and agropastoral communities on climate anomalies in the Kapoeta region.