Oscar J. Mesa , Viviana Urrea, Andrés Ochoa

Prediction of changes in precipitation in upcoming years and decades caused by global climate change associated with the greenhouse effect, deforestation and other anthropic perturbations is a practical and scientific problem of high complexity and huge consequences. To advance toward this challenge we look at the daily historical record of all available rain gauges in Colombia to estimate an index of the intensity of the hydrologic cycle (Giorgi et al., 2011). The index is the product of precipitation intensity and dry spell length. Theoretical reasons indicate that global warming should lead to increasing trends in either one of the factors or both. Our results indicate that there is no clear picture, there are gauges with positive and negative significant trends, and most of the gauges do not show a significant trend. We present the geographic distribution of results within regions and concerning the elevation in the Andes Cordillera. Results seem to agree with previous reports of total annual precipitation trends.