Trends analysis of precipitation data over the tropical South-West Indian Ocean (SWIO) basin using the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) method

Abstract

In this paper, we propose the use of the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) method in the analysis of trends in climate data. As compared to existing traditional methods, EEMD is simple, fast and reliable. It works by decomposing the time-series data into intrinsic mode functions until a residual component is obtained which represents the trend in the data. The dataset considered consists of satellite precipitation estimates (SPE) obtained from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) for the tropical South-West Indian Ocean (SWIO) basin recorded during the periods January 1998 to December 2013. The SWIO basin spans from the latitudes 5° S to 35° S and the longitudes 30° E to 70° E and comprises of part of the east coast of Africa and some small island developing states (SIDS) such as Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion Island. The EEMD analysis is carried out for summer, winter and yearly time series of the SPE data. The results from the study are presented in terms of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and the trends. The analysis reveals that in summer, there is a tendency to have an increase in the amount of rainfall, whereas in winter, from 1998 to 2004 there has been an initial increase of 0.0022 mm/hr/year and from there onwards till 2013 a decrease of 0.00052 mm/hr/year was noted.