Recent droughts and effect of climate change on climate extremes in the East African region.

East Africa is a region that has been affected by droughts, floods, famine one too many times. 2015 was one of the worst droughts in the region in decades and created a food crisis in the region leading to 15 million people needing food and water assistance. In a region where the climate resilience of the society is low, understanding of the climate and how it's changing is very important. Unfortunately, only a few studies have been done in this area. In this study we looked at the recent droughts in the region and analyzed the trends in relation to historical data. A combination of remote sensing products like TRMM, GPM and MERRA were used in conjunction with gridded observed products like CPC as well as gauge observations to carry out the analysis. The second part of the analysis focused on how climate change will affect the climate extremes in the region focusing on precipitation, temperature and evapotranspiration. 20 selected GCMs from CMIP5 were used at a daily timescale to look at climate extremes. Changes in daily intensity of precipitation, seasonal shifts and total rainfall were analyzed for mid-century and end of the century RCP 6.0 scenario and compared to the historical figures. In addition, daily extreme temperature and evapotranspiration as well seasonal shifts were focuses of this study. Spatial variations were also shown to be important in understanding the changes. Even though studies have shown the total rainfall in the region didn't show a significant change in that region under climate change, seasonal shifts, extreme precipitation, extreme temperatures, prolonged droughts, and increase in evapotranspiration were observed in East Africa. In a region where population is expected to double by mid-century this extreme can put the lives of millions in danger. This study will be followed with another focusing on how these changes in extremes and distribution will affect the water resources in the region specifically the Nile.