Submitted to the 1st International Conference on Energy, Environment And Climate Changes

Abstract — Global dataset of derived indicators has been compiled to clarify whether the frequency and / or the severity of rainfall extremes changed during the 1960 – 2000 period in the Republic of Benin in West Africa. This period provides the best spatial coverage of homogenous daily series, which can be used for calculating the proportion of global land area exhibiting a significant change in extreme or severe rainfall. We selected 12 indicators of extreme climatic events that are based on daily totals of precipitation. The six first indicators are the annual total precipitation (RTOT); the annual total of wet days (with daily rainfall> = 1mm, Rd); the simple day intensity index (SDII) calculated as the average rainfall from wet days; the annual maximum rainfall recorded during 1, 5, and 30 days (Rx1d, Rx5d, and Rx30d). The other six indices are based on the 95th and 99th percentiles calculated from the daily rainfall data over the 1961