CLIMATIC VARIABILITY IN HUMID AFRICA ALONG THE GULF-OF-GUINEA .2. AN INTEGRATED REGIONAL APPROACH

The analysis presented here deals with the annual precipitation levels and the number of rainy days a year as observed in several countries located along the Gulf of Guinea (Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, N igeria) during the decades from the 1950s to the 1980s, The study is b ased on a set of methods used both for the interpolation and the carto graphic representation of the results as well as on statistical method s for the detection of breaks in the rime series, It is possible throu gh them to underscore a climatic variability at the regional level at the end of the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s, with, however, an important variability in space of the intensity of the phenomenon. The conclusions drawn previously from the study conducted on Cote d'I voire do not constitute a unique case. Generally speaking, it can be a sserted that the whole region of humid west Africa was affected by a c limatic accident that is comparable and in line with what was observed further to the north, in the Sahelian region.