Spatial distribution of secular trends in rainfall indices of Peninsular Malaysia in the presence of long‐term persistence

Abstract

The presence of long-term persistence (LTP) in hydroclimatic time series can lead to considerable change in the significance of trend. Therefore, past findings of climatic trend analysis without considering LTP in time series has become a disputable issue. The objective of this study was to assess the spatial patterns in the trends of annual and seasonal rainfall amounts and extremes in Peninsular Malaysia considering LTP. Daily rainfall data of APHRODITE (Asian Precipitation – Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation) for the period 1951–2007 was used to assess the trends using the classical Mann–Kendall (MK) test and the modified version of the MK test, which can remove the influence of LTP in the significance of trends. The results indicate that significant trends in different rainfall indices of Peninsular Malaysia obtained using the MK test reduced drastically when LTP was taken into consideration. There was almost no change in annual and seasonal rainfall amounts, which contradicts the findings of previous studies. The field significance of regional trends revealed an increase in wet spells at an average rate of 4.8 and 4.9 days/decade in the southeast and the southwest respectively during the northeast monsoon, and a decrease in rainy days by −1.4 days/decade in the north and an increase both in dry spells by 1.0 day/decade in the southeast and in the maximum 1 day rainfall by 1.7 mm/decade on the west coast during the southwest monsoon. The results indicate that the trends in rainfall indices reported in the maritime continent in previous studies should be re-evaluated as most of them are due to LTP.