Recent Temperature and Rainfall Characteristics in Dodoma Region, Central Tanzania (1961 – 2013)

Abstract

This paper presents the recent temperature and rainfall characteristics in Dodoma region, central Tanzania. The study used archival temperature and rainfall data for the past 53 years (1961 – 2013). Simple linear trend analysis and Mann-Kendall test were used to establish and test for rainfall and temperature trends through Microsoft Excel (2010) and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 20). Results for both minimum and maximum temperature indicate a significant increased trend (p=0.000, p=0.001) respectively at 0.05 significance level. Conversely, non-significant decreasing and increasing rainfall trends were noted for Bahi, Mpwapwa and Dodoma (p=0.532, p=0.473, p=0.629) respectively, at 0.05 significance level. Results further indicate that rainfall variability in the study area is influenced by local, regional and global variations. From the results, it is noted that temperature and rainfall have both significant and insignificant changes. It is recommended that the observed increased temperature and declined rainfall requires more adaptation strategies than usual to reduce adverse effects as climate variability is expected to further increase in the near future.