Trend of Extreme Precipitation over Sumatera Island for 1981-2010

Abstract

Extreme climate events have significant impacts on various sectors such as agriculture, ecosystem, health and energy. The issue would lead to economic losses as well as social problems. This study aims to investigate the trend of extreme precipitation in Sumatera Island based on observed data during 30-year period, 1981–2010. There are ten indices of climate extreme as defined by ETCCDMI, which were tested in this study, including PRCPTOT, SDII, CDD, CWD, R10, R50, R95p, R99p, Rx1day and Rx5day. Then, the trend was analyzed based on the Mann-Kendall statistic, performed on the time series of precipitation data. The result shows that there was positive trend of extreme precipitation found in most stations over Sumatera, either statistically significant or insignificant. In each extreme precipitation indices, the number of observed stations indicating the insignificant change is higher than the significant one. This research also found that some indices including SDII, Rx1day, R50, R95p and R99p, showed a significantly-positive trend followed by a higher intensity of wetter and heavier events of extreme precipitation over Sumatera. On the other hand, the wet spell (CWD) index shows a negative trend (α=0.05).