Study of Boundary Layer Height over West Africa

Monthly means of boundary layer height (BLH) over West Africa are presented based on 36 years (1979-2014) of six-hourly ERA-Interim reanalysis. In this region, we found that there is a link between the West Africa Monsoon (WAM) and the monthly means of BLH in the summer. The trend and empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of BLH are presented, including the mid July variability of BLH with the precipitation. The dominant EOF of BLH accounts for around 42% of the variance with slightly large amplitude in the north while relatively small in the equatorial band. The second EOF which accounts for 16.4%, describes a longitudinal contrast with a zonal gradient. The relationship between BLH and precipitation is found using the canonical correlation analysis (CCA). Significant trends of the first and second pairs of BLH with precipitation are shown. The first and second CCA pair has a correlation of 68% and 60% with 12.2 and 10.8 degrees of freedom respectively. The critical correlation coefficients at the 95% level are 0.21 and 0.65 for the first and second CCA pairs respectively. This first CCA pair mostly determines the arid and semi-arid areas where the rate of explained regional variance is about 78% in the arid area and 73% in the semi-arid area. For the second pair of CCA, the rate of explained regional variance is more than 60% in the Guinea coast and wet equatorial area.

Interannual Variability of Rainfall over the West Africa Sahel

Interannual variability of the precipitation over West Africa Sahel is analyzed based on 32 years (1979-2010) from monthly and daily database of the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP). In this region, we found that there is a link between the West Africa Monsoon (WAM) and the daily means of the precipitation in the summer, unseasonal rains can occur in the transition seasons and even in the heart of the dry season. Rainfall is the most important element for agro-pastoral activities in this region. The 850-hPa wind and wind divergence structure show a maximum convection over Mountain region (Fouta-Djalon and Mont-Cameroon) which corresponds to the high precipitation and OLR observed in these regions. The trend and empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of the precipitation are presented, including the mid-July variability of the precipitation. The dominant EOF of GPCP precipitation accounts for around 25.3% of the variance with slightly large amplitude in the north while relatively small in the equatorial band respectively. The second and third EOF which accounts for 20.5% and 14%, describes a longitudinal contrast with a zonal gradient.

Assessment of Regional Climate Models over Côte D'Ivoire and Analysis of Future Projections over West Africa

The ability of six Regional Climate Models (RCMs) used in AMMA-ENSEMBLES project is assessed over six meteorological stations in C&#244te d’Ivoire. The ensemble mean of the models is also used for the prediction of climate change over West Africa. The study focused on two periods: the period 1995-2005, the present-day simulations, is used to evaluate the skills of the models over the country and the years 2010-2013, for assessment of the future climate change scenario used. The results show that the skills of the models vary from one station to another and from one season to another. None of the models considered, presents an excellent performance over the entire country and in all the seasons. Generally, the ensemble mean of all the models presents better results when compared with the observation. These results suggest that the choice of any model for study over the country may depend on the focus of interest: intensity or variability of the rain and also on area of interest. The projection for 2020-2040, future climate change over West Africa shows that the Sahel exhibits a tendency to be drier while wetter Guinean coast is observed.

Sensitivity Study of the RegCM4’s Surface Schemes in the Simulations of West Africa Climate

Two simulations of five years (2003-2007) were conducted with the Regional Climate models RegCM4, one coupled with Land surface models BATS and the other with CLM4.5 over West Africa, where simulated air temperature and precipitation were analyzed. The purpose of this study is to assess the performance of RegCM4 coupled with the new CLM4.5 Land surface scheme and the standard one named BATS in order to find the best configuration of RegCM4 over West African. This study could improve our understanding of the sensitivity of land surface model in West Africa climate simulation, and provide relevant information to RegCM4 users. The results show fairly realistic restitution of West Africa’s climatology and indicate correlations of 0.60 to 0.82 between the simulated fields (BATS and CLM4.5) for precipitation. The substitution of BATS surface scheme by CLM4.5 in the model configuration, leads mainly to an improvement of precipitation over the Atlantic Ocean, however, the impact is not sufficiently noticeable over the continent. While the CLM4.5 experiment restores the seasonal cycles and spatial distribution, the biases increase for precipitation and temperature. Positive biases already existing with BATS are amplified over some sub-regions. This study concludes that temporal localization (seasonal effect), spatial distribution (grid points) and magnitude of precipitation and temperature (bias) are not simultaneously improved by CLM4.5. The introduction of the new land surface scheme CLM4.5, therefore, leads to a performance of the same order as that of BATS, albeit with a more detailed formulation.

Influence of Sea Level Pressure on Inter-Annual Rainfall Variability in Northern Senegal in the Context of Climate Change

This study examines the inter-annual variability of rainfall and Mean Sea Level Pressure (MSLP) over west Africa based on analysis of the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) and National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) Reanalysis respectively. An interconnection is found in this region, between Mean Sea Level Pressure (MSLP) anomaly (over Azores and St. Helena High) and monthly mean precipitation during summer (June to September: JJAS). We also found that over northern Senegal (15°N - 17°N;17°W - 13°W) the SLP to the north is strong;the wind converges at 200 hPa corresponding to the position of the African Easterly Jet (AEJ) the rotational wind 700 hPa (corresponding to the position of the African Easterly Jet (AEJ) coming from the north-east is negative. In this region, the precipitation is related to the SLP to the north with the opposite sign. The Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF) of SLP is also presented, including the mean spectrum of precipitation and pressures to the north (15°N - 40°N and 50°W - 25°W) and south (40°S - 10°S and 40°W - 0°E). The dominant EOF of Sea Level Pressures north and south of the Atlantic Ocean for GPCP represents about 62.2% and 69.4% of the variance, respectively. The second and third EOFs of the pressure to the north account for 24.0% and 6.5% respectively. The second and third EOFs of the pressure to the south represent 12.5% and 8.9% respectively. Wet years in the north of Senegal were associated with anomalous low-pressure areas over the north Atlantic Ocean as opposed to the dry years which exhibited an anomalous high-pressure area in the same region. On the other hand, over the South Atlantic, an opposition is noted. The wavelet analysis method is applied to the SLP showings to the north, south and precipitation in our study area. The indices prove to be very consistent, especially during intervals of high variance.