Climatic variability in humid Africa along the Gulf of Guinea .1. Detailed analysis of the phenomenon in Cote d'Ivoire

The analysis presented here deals with annual precipitation as well as the number of rainy days observed in Cote d'Ivoire during the decades from 1950 to 1980. The study is based on a set of methods both for interpolation and for cartographic representation as well as on statistical methods for the detection of breaks in the time series. The methods reveal a climatic variability in the country as a whole at the end of the 60s and at the beginning of the 70s. Indeed, the results show that there was a sharp decrease both in rainfall amounts and in the number of rainy days during the 60s and the 70s. Cote d'Ivoire, which belongs to humid Africa, was therefore affected by a climatic accident comparable to and in line with what was observed further north in the Sahelian region.