ALM UNDP

Summary:

These country-level climate data summaries were prepared with funding from the UNDP National Communication Suport Programme (NSCP) and the UK government Department for International Development (DfiD) in order to address the climate change information gap for developing countries by making use of existing climate data to generate a series of country-level studies of climate observations and the multi-model projections made available through the WCRP CMIP3. A consistent approach has been applied for 52 developing countries in order to produce an 'off the shelf' analysis of climate data, and also make available the underlying data for each country for use in further research.

For more information: UNDP Climate Change Country Profiles

For each of the 52 countries, a report contains a set of maps and diagrams demonstrating the observed and projected climates of that country as country average timeseries as well as maps depicting changes on a 2.5° grid and summary tables of the data. A narrative summarises the data in the figures, and placing it in the context of the country's general climate.

A dataset containing the underlying observed and model data for that country, is made available for use in further research projects. The files are smaller and more manageable than the global fields made available by the PCMDI, and in text format which can be easily downloaded, read and manipulated.

Source: University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment. Accessed on 23 November 2009 at: http://country-profiles.geog.ox.ac.uk/.

For Togo:

Recent Climate Trends

Temperature

• Mean annual temperature has increased by 1.1°C since 1960, an average rate of 0.24°C per decade. The rate of increase has been most rapid in AMJ, a around 0.31°C per decade.
• The rate of increase has generally been more rapid in the northern regions of the country than in the south.
• Daily temperature data indicate that the frequency of ‘hot’1 days and nights has increased significantly in all seasons.
• The average number of ‘hot’ days per year in Togo has increased by 57 (an additional 15.5% of days2) between 1960 and 2003. The rate of increase is seen most strongly in SON when the average number of hot SON days has increased by 7.7 days per month (an additional 24.7% of SON days) over this period.
• The average number of ‘hot’ nights per year increased by 79 (an additional 21.5% of nights) between 1960 and 2003. The rate of increase is seen most strongly in SON when the average number of hot SON nights has increased by 10 days per month (an additional 32.4% of SON nights) over this period.
• The frequency of cold days3 and nights has decreased significantly since 1960 in most seasons.
• The average number of ‘cold ‘days per year has decreased by 21 (5.8% of days) between 1960 and 2003. This rate of decrease is most rapid in summer (JJA) when the average number of cold summer days has decreased by 2.5 days per month (8.1% of summer days) over this period.
• The average number of ‘cold’ nights per year has decreased by 14 (4.0% of days). This rate of decrease is most rapid in JJA when the average number of cold JJA nights has decreased by 2.8 nights per month (9% of JJA nights) over this period.

Precipitation

• Annual rainfall in Togo is highly variable on inter‐annual and inter‐decadal timescales. This means that long term trends are difficult to identify. Rainfall over Togo was particularly high in the 1960s, and decreased to particularly low levels in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which causes an overall decreasing trend in the period 1960 to 2006, of an average 2.3mm per month (2.4%) per decade.
• There is no evidence of a trend in the proportion of rainfall that falls in ‘heavy’4 events since 1960.

To access more information on Togo: UNDP Climate Change Country Profiles - Togo