Land surface influences on the West African summer monsoon: Implications for synoptic disturbances

Summary The study examines regional atmospheric model (RM) simulations of the mean June–September (JJAS) climate and the implications of the mean state for the model representation of African wave disturbances (AWD). Two simulations are made with a version of the RM that computes soil moisture with multivariate functions that statistically relate it to rainfall, surface temperature, albedo, vegetation and terrain slope. These simulations differ according to the assignment of ground temperatures (Tg). While the control experiment is based on the fully interactive computation of soil moisture, the second experiment tests the response to fixed Tg whose seasonal means are more realistic than in the control within a swath along the Gulf of Guinea coast. A third simulation is made with the RM coupled to a sophisticated land surface process model (RM2). Results show a rather acute sensitivity of the mean circulation to land surface processes. The more realistic meridional temperature gradient created by fixing Tg in turn increased the vertical wind shear over West Africa and eliminated unrealistic westerly circulation at 700mb. AWD composites were transformed from intense closed cyclonic circulations with copious rainfall to more realistic open waves that organized more moderate precipitation maxima. Lower vorticity variances in the specified change experiment imply that the open waves were characterized by more moderate vorticity extremes. Corresponding spectral amplitudes for 3–6 day periodicities of the 700mb meridional wind were 40–80% of control values within the swath of maximum AWD activity. From among the three simulations, RM2 achieved seasonal mean precipitation, temperature, energy flux and circulation distributions that, despite some unrealistic features, were closest to observational evidence. RM2 AWD were much less intense and favored slightly longer periods. Results demonstrate that discrepancies in modeled ground temperatures caused by underestimating the cloudiness that intercepts short wave solar flux along a narrow swath of the West African coast have far-reaching consequences for the simulation of both the mean summer climate and individual synoptic disturbances. The study implies that this cooling along the Gulf of Guinea coast prevents AWD from developing into more intense storms with heavier precipitation.     

A theoretical and numerical study of African wave disturbances

Summary Based upon linearized perturbation analysis, the initiating mechanisms for African wave disturbances were investigated. The analysis indicates that in summer over the deserts of tropical North Africa dynamic instability possessing the prominent characteristics of the wave disturbances can occur in the lower troposphere under the unique thermal conditions maintained by solar heating.The non-linear aspects of the instability and the dynamics of a developing African wave disturbance were examined using real-data forecast experiments. The prediction model was a three dimensional primitive equation model. The numerical results reveal the controlling role of the thermal structure in determining the horizontal scale of motion in West Africa. The dynamic responses to the thermal structure result in a configuration favorable for the baroclinic development of the model wave system. Findings from the modeling are in good agreement with the linear model's assessment of many basic features of the disturbances.This study also underlines the significance of radiation-dynamics interaction in the short-range limited-area numerical weather prediction. In summer, over the arid land of the southwestern United States under strong solar heating short-wave disturbances, which may share the similar origin as African waves, are often observed in the lower troposphere. Encounterring potentially unstable air mass the disturbances can trigger heavy rainfall. The indicator is that the inclusion of adequate radiation processes in regional modeling may be essential for improving the prediction of some heavy precipitation events.With 8 Figures     

Energetics of African wave disturbances derived from the FSU Global Spectral Model

Summary The FSU Global Spectral Model including comprehensive physical parameterization and high resolution (T 106) is used to make predictions to 48 hours for two cases of African easterly wave disturbances which occurred during FGGE. Model output is compared with FGGE III-b analyses to qualitatively assess the model's performance. The results of energetics calculations for the two case studies are included in this study. These calculations are based on model output to 24 hours. The energetics results confirm that combined barotropic/baroclinic instability provides the primary energy source for the African waves. Such energetics results, based on individual case studies, also provide an interesting and valuable comparison with compositing studies on African waves. An aspect of this study deals with the definition of a double jet stream structure at 700 mb for the two cases under consideration. The energetics patierns in zones to the north and south of each of these jets are separately portrayed.With 15 Figures     

Impact of the Indian part of the summer MJO on West Africa using nudged climate simulations

Observational evidence suggests a link between the summer Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) and anomalous convection over West Africa. This link is further studied with the help of the LMDZ atmospheric general circulation model. The approach is based on nudging the model towards the reanalysis in the Asian monsoon region. The simulation successfully captures the convection associated with the summer MJO in the nudging region. Outside this region the model is free to evolve. Over West Africa it simulates convection anomalies that are similar in magnitude, structure, and timing to the observed ones. In accordance with the observations, the simulation shows that 15–20?days after the maximum increase (decrease) of convection in the Indian Ocean there is a significant reduction (increase) in West African convection. The simulation strongly suggests that in addition to the eastward-moving MJO signal, the westward propagation of a convectively coupled equatorial Rossby wave is needed to explain the overall impact of the MJO on convection over West Africa. These results highlight the use of MJO events to potentially predict regional-scale anomalous convection and rainfall spells over West Africa with a time lag of approximately 15–20?days.     

Land surface coupling in regional climate simulations of the West African monsoon

Coupling of the Community Land Model (CLM3) to the ICTP Regional Climate Model (RegCM3) substantially improves the simulation of mean climate over West Africa relative to an older version of RegCM3 coupled to the Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS). Two 10-year simulations (1992–2001) show that the seasonal timing and magnitude of mean monsoon precipitation more closely match observations when the new land surface scheme is implemented. Specifically, RegCM3–CLM3 improves the timing of the monsoon advance and retreat across the Guinean Coast, and reduces a positive precipitation bias in the Sahel and Northern Africa. As a result, simulated temperatures are higher, thereby reducing the negative temperature bias found in the Guinean Coast and Sahel in RegCM3–BATS. In the RegCM3–BATS simulation, warmer temperatures in northern latitudes and wetter soils near the coast create excessively strong temperature and moist static energy gradients, which shifts the African Easterly Jet further north than observed. In the RegCM3–CLM3 simulation, the migration and position of the African Easterly Jet more closely match reanalysis winds. This improvement is triggered by drier soil conditions in the RegCM3–CLM3 simulation and an increase in evapotranspiration per unit precipitation. These results indicate that atmosphere–land surface coupling has the ability to impact regional-scale circulation and precipitation in regions exhibiting strong hydroclimatic gradients.     

High-resolution simulations of West African climate using regional climate model (RegCM3) with different lateral boundary conditions

To downscale climate change scenarios, long-term regional climatologies employing global model forcing are needed for West Africa. As a first step, this work examines present-day integrations (1981–2000) with a regional climate model (RCM) over West Africa nested in both reanalysis data and output from a coupled atmospheric–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM). Precipitation and temperature from both simulations are compared to the Climate Research Unit observations. Their spatial distributions are shown to be realistic. Annual cycles are considerably correlated. Simulations are also evaluated with respect to the driving large-scale fields. RCM offers some improvements compared to the AOGCM driving field. Evaluation of seasonal precipitation biases reveals that RCM dry biases are highest on June–August around mountains. They are associated to cold biases in temperature which, in turn, are connected to wet biases in precipitation outside orographic zones. Biases brought through AOGCM forcing are relatively low. Despite these errors, the simulations produce encouraging results and show the ability of the AOGCM to drive the RCM for future projections.     

A global perspective on African climate

We describe the global climate system context in which to interpret African environmental change to support planning and implementation of policymaking action at national, regional and continental scales, and to inform the debate between proponents of mitigation v. adaptation strategies in the face of climate change. We review recent advances and current challenges in African climate research and exploit our physical understanding of variability and trends to shape our outlook on future climate change. We classify the various mechanisms that have been proposed as relevant for understanding variations in African rainfall, emphasizing a “tropospheric stabilization” mechanism that is of importance on interannual time scales as well as for the future response to warming oceans. Two patterns stand out in our analysis of twentieth century rainfall variability: a drying of the monsoon regions, related to warming of the tropical oceans, and variability related to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The latest generation of climate models partly captures this recent continent-wide drying trend, attributing it to the combination of anthropogenic emissions of aerosols and greenhouse gases, the relative contribution of which is difficult to quantify with the existing model archive. The same climate models fail to reach a robust agreement regarding the twenty-first century outlook for African rainfall, in a future with increasing greenhouse gases and decreasing aerosol loadings. Such uncertainty underscores current limitations in our understanding of the global climate system that it is necessary to overcome if science is to support Africa in meeting its development goals.     

Intercomparison and analyses of the climatology of the West African Monsoon in the West African Monsoon Modeling and Evaluation project (WAMME) first model intercomparison experiment

This paper briefly presents the West African Monsoon (WAM) Modeling and Evaluation Project (WAMME) and evaluates WAMME general circulation models’ (GCM) performances in simulating variability of WAM precipitation, surface temperature, and major circulation features at seasonal and intraseasonal scales in the first WAMME experiment. The analyses indicate that models with specified sea surface temperature generally have reasonable simulations of the pattern of spatial distribution of WAM seasonal mean precipitation and surface temperature as well as the averaged zonal wind in latitude-height cross-section and low level circulation. But there are large differences among models in simulating spatial correlation, intensity, and variance of precipitation compared with observations. Furthermore, the majority of models fail to produce proper intensities of the African Easterly Jet (AEJ) and the tropical easterly jet. AMMA Land Surface Model Intercomparison Project (ALMIP) data are used to analyze the association between simulated surface processes and the WAM and to investigate the WAM mechanism. It has been identified that the spatial distributions of surface sensible heat flux, surface temperature, and moisture convergence are closely associated with the simulated spatial distribution of precipitation; while surface latent heat flux is closely associated with the AEJ and contributes to divergence in AEJ simulation. Common empirical orthogonal functions (CEOF) analysis is applied to characterize the WAM precipitation evolution and has identified a major WAM precipitation mode and two temperature modes (Sahara mode and Sahel mode). Results indicate that the WAMME models produce reasonable temporal evolutions of major CEOF modes but have deficiencies/uncertainties in producing variances explained by major modes. Furthermore, the CEOF analysis shows that WAM precipitation evolution is closely related to the enhanced Sahara mode and the weakened Sahel mode, supporting the evidence revealed in the analysis using ALMIP data. An analysis of variability of CEOF modes suggests that the Sahara mode leads the WAM evolution, and divergence in simulating this mode contributes to discrepancies in the precipitation simulation.     

Simulation of the West African monsoon onset using the HadGEM3-RA regional climate model

The performance of the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 3 regional climate model (HadGEM3-RA) in simulating the West African monsoon (WAM) is investigated. We focus on performance for monsoon onset timing and for rainfall totals over the June–July–August (JJA) season and on the model’s representation of the underlying dynamical processes. Experiments are driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis and follow the CORDEX experimental protocol. Simulations with the HadGEM3 global model, which shares a common physical formulation with HadGEM3-RA, are used to gain insight into the causes of HadGEM3-RA simulation errors. It is found that HadGEM3-RA simulations of monsoon onset timing are realistic, with an error in mean onset date of two pentads. However, the model has a dry bias over the Sahel during JJA of 15–20 %. Analysis suggests that this is related to errors in the positioning of the Saharan heat low, which is too far south in HadGEM3-RA and associated with an insufficient northward reach of the south-westerly low-level monsoon flow and weaker moisture convergence over the Sahel. Despite these biases HadGEM3-RA’s representation of the general rainfall distribution during the WAM appears superior to that of ERA-Interim when using Global Precipitation Climatology Project or Tropical Rain Measurement Mission data as reference. This suggests that the associated dynamical features seen in HadGEM3-RA can complement the physical picture available from ERA-Interim. This approach is supported by the fact that the global HadGEM3 model generates realistic simulations of the WAM without the benefit of pseudo-observational forcing at the lateral boundaries; suggesting that the physical formulation shared with HadGEM3-RA, is able to represent the driving processes. HadGEM3-RA simulations confirm previous findings that the main rainfall peak near 10°N during June–August is maintained by a region of mid-tropospheric ascent located, latitudinally, between the cores of the African Easterly Jet and Tropical Easterly Jet that intensifies around the time of onset. This region of ascent is weaker and located further south near 5°N in the driving ERA-Interim reanalysis, for reasons that may be related to the coarser resolution or the physics of the underlying model, and this is consistent with a less realistic latitudinal rainfall profile than found in the HadGEM3-RA simulations.     

双流机场盛夏雷雨的中尺度分析

多个雷雨过程的位涡诊断分析表明:位势涡度的变化比涡度倾向更明显地表征了成都地区夏季雷雨的变化.即雷雨发展时,对流层中低层出现负的变位涡,而在其减弱时为正的变位涡,高层则正好相反.影响位涡变化最主要的物理因子是位涡通量的水平散度作用、水平风速的辐合作用和加热率的垂直差异效应.     

双流机场盛夏雷雨的中尺度分析

多个雷雨过程的位涡诊断分析表明：位势涡度的变化比涡度倾向更明显地表征了成都地区夏季雷雨的变化。即雷雨发展时，对流层中你 出现负的变位涡，而在其减弱时为正的变位涡，高层则正好相反。影响位涡变化最主要的物理因子是位涡通量的水平散度作用，水平风速的辐合作用和加热率的垂直差异效应。     

Impact of soil moisture initialisation and lateral boundary conditions on regional climate model simulations of the West African Monsoon

In this study, we use the Met Office Hadley Centre regional climate model HadRM3P to investigate the relative impact of initial soil moisture (SM) and lateral boundary conditions (LBC) on simulations of the West African Monsoon. Soil moisture data that are in balance with our particular model are generated using a 10-year (1997–2007) simulation of HadRM3P nested within the NCEP-R2 reanalyses. Three sets of experiments are then performed for six April–October seasons (2000 and 2003–2007) to assess the sensitivity to different sources of initial SM data and lateral boundary data. The results show that the only impact of the initial SM anomalies on precipitation is to generate small random intraseasonal, interannual and spatial variations. In comparison, the influence of the LBC dominates both in terms of magnitude and spatial coherency. Nevertheless, other sources of initial SM data or other models may respond differently, so it is recommended that the robustness of this conclusion is established using other model configurations.     

Regional climate modelling of the 2006 West African monsoon: sensitivity to convection and planetary boundary layer parameterisation using WRF

Regional climate model (RCM) is a valuable scientific tool to address the mechanisms of regional atmospheric systems such as the West African monsoon (WAM). This study aims to improve our understanding of the impact of some physical schemes of RCM on the WAM representation. The weather research and forecasting model has been used by performing six simulations of the 2006 summer WAM season. These simulations use all combinations of three convective parameterization schemes (CPSs) and two planetary boundary layer schemes (PBLSs). By comparing the simulations to a large set of observations and analysis products, we have evaluated the ability of these RCM parameterizations to reproduce different aspects of the regional atmospheric circulation of the WAM. This study focuses in particular on the WAM onset and the rainfall variability simulated over this domain. According to the different parameterizations tested, the PBLSs seem to have the strongest effect on temperature, humidity vertical distribution and rainfall amount. On the other hand, dynamics and precipitation variability are strongly influenced by CPSs. In particular, the Mellor?CYamada?CJanjic PBLS attributes more realistic values of humidity and temperature. Combined with the Kain?CFritsch CPS, the WAM onset is well represented. The different schemes combination tested also reveal the role of different regional climate features on WAM dynamics, namely the low level circulation, the land?Catmosphere interactions and the meridional temperature gradient between the Guinean coast and the Sahel.     

GCM studies of the African summer monsoon

A 37-year simulation of global climate by a 9-level GCM on an 8°×10° grid showed realistic interannual variation of the computed precipitation over the African Sahel. The model includes an interactive ocean so that interannual variations of sea-surface temperature (SST) also occur. Comparison of an ensemble of five summers that were rainy over the Sahel with five summers of simulated drought showed that insufficient ambient moisture was the immediate cause of the lack of moist convection. The drier conditions are shown to result from weaker moisture advection over the southeast Atlantic Ocean. Weaker southerly winds there and lower sea-level pressure gradients seemed to result from anomalously warm SST. Such SST anomalies have been linked to Sahelian drought in previous observational studies. These regional circulations that were conducive to lower rainfall rates during the north African summer monsoon were not manifestations of the more generalized zonal mean circulation.     

Spatial modelling of summer climate indices based on local climate zones: expected changes in the future climate of Brno,Czech Republic

Climatic Change - With global climate change ongoing, there is growing concern about future living conditions in urban areas. This contribution presents the modelled spatial distribution of two...