Change in fracture permeability after the flow-through of CO2-acidified brine

There has been considerable uncertainty about changes in rainfall over central equatorial Africa over the past three decades due to a lack of reliable rainfall data in the region. This region contains the northern portion of the Albertine Rift, which is one of the world's hotspots for biodiversity, and within this region there is an exploding human population dependent on rainfed agriculture. Both the human population and conservation/preservation areas are becoming increasingly sensitive to changes in rainfall. There now exists an accurate, high-resolution, satellite based precipitation dataset, African Rainfall Climatology version 2 (ARC2), for the region that provides daily rainfall estimates from 1983 to the present. Here we show significant declines in monthly and annual rainfall in west-central Uganda, which exists in the far northeastern portion of the Rift, from 1983-2012. The decrease in annual rainfall was 110 mm per decade. Therefore, the current annual rainfall of approximately 1,200 mm is less than 80% of the annual rainfall three decades ago. The drying trend most likely extended westward into the Congo Basin. There were significant increasing (decreasing) trends in light-rainfall (heavy-rainfall) days over the period. Using results from previous studies, Indian Ocean warming and increasing carbonaceous aerosols from biomass burning in tropical Africa, are explored as potential causes of the drying trend. The aim of the study is not to find the fingerprint of local and regional anthropogenic forcings on the drying trend, but our results suggest that those forcings could be a leading cause of the drying trend.