Climate aridity in southern Bulgaria for the period 1961-2015

Abstract

The climate change on a global, regional and local scale is one of the largest problems indicated by the 21st century studies. Some of the major climate changes on the Balkan Peninsula, and in particular in Bulgaria, are related to rising temperatures and decreasing precipitation, which leads to drought and climate aridity. The present study focuses on the investigation of the climate aridity in the non-mountainous part of Southern Bulgaria in order to assess the aridity condition in temporal and spatial scale. The main investigated period is 1961-2015 and the reference periods are 1961-1990 and 1986-2015. The aridity is analysed on the basis of monthly data for air temperatures and precipitation from eight meteorological stations by calculation of De Martonne aridity index and Emberger Index. The survey shows that in all the analysed meteorological stations in Southern Bulgaria there are periods which display characteristics of the semiarid or arid climate. The aridity is well-expressed in the southwest part of Bulgaria (station Sandanski) and the western part of the Thracian lowland (station Plovdiv). Despite the aridity conditions established in the investigated region the tendencies in multiannual variability of De Martonne and Emberger indices show decreasing of aridity during the last 30 years (1986-2015) of the investigated period.