Regional Climate Modeling of West African Summer Monsoon Climate: Impact of Historical Boundary Forcing

Abstract:

In this paper, we analyze and intercompare the performance of an ensemble of three Regional Climate Models (RCMs) driven by three set of Global Climate Models (GCMs), in reproducing seasonal mean climatologies with their annual cycle and the key features of West African summer monsoon over 20 years period (1985–2004) during the present day. The results show that errors in lateral boundary conditions from the GCM members, have an unexpected way on the skill of the RCMs in reproducing regional climate features such as the West African Monsoon features and the annual cycle of precipitation and temperature in terms of outperforming the GCM simulation. It also shows the occurrence of the West African Monsoon jump, the intensification and northward shift of the Saharan Heat Low (SHL) as expressed in some RCMs than the GCMs. Most RCMs also capture the mean annual cycle of precipitation and temperature, including, single and double-peaked during the summer months, in terms of events and amplitude. In a series of RCMs and GCMs experiments between the Sahara region and equatorial Africa, the presence of strong positive meridional temperature gradients at the surface and a strong meridional gradients in the potential temperatures near the surface are obvious, indicating the region of strong vertical shear development enough to establish easterly flow such as the African easterly jet. In addition, the isentropic potential vorticity (IPV) gradient decreases northward in the lower troposphere across northern Africa, with the maximum reversal on the 315-K surface. The region with negative IPV gradient favors the potential instability which has been associated with the growth of easterly waves.