Climate Change, Rainfall Trends and Variation in Yola, Adamawa State Nigeria

This study evaluated the effect of climate change on rainfall trends and variation in Yola, Adamawa state Nigeria for the period of 30 years (1992-2021) which represents a climatic period. Rainfall data were collected from the archive of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Yola station, from 1992-2021. Rainfall variations and trends over the study period were analyzed using Mann Kendal trend test and the Theil Sen slope estimator. The analysis of the inter annual trend of the rainfall shows an overall decreasing trend in Yola within the study period (1992-2021), which implies that rainfall in Yola has decreased during the study period with a magnitude of 7.23 mm year-1. The decadal analysis revealed a positive trend for the three decades. It further show that the first decade has the highest rainfall trend while the second decade is the lowest rainfall decade with values that range from 10.7 to 45.1 mm decade-1. It was also observed that there was a considerable increase in rainfall amount in the third decade compared to the second decade. Finally, the projection of rainfall shows a decreasing trend for the next decade with a decadal trend of -0.057 mm decade -1. It was therefore recommended that farmers should plant species of early maturing crops, drought resistance seeds should be made available to the farmers for planting and government should build earth dams to harvest rain waters for irrigation farming activities in the state.