Abstract
In this chapter we present an analysis of the simulated rainfall over Ethiopia in climate simulations from the current generation HadAM3 climate model and from the new high-resolution HiGAM climate model. Comparisons are made with observations of rainfall from Ethiopian rain gauge data, merged gauge-satellite datasets and the ECMWF reanalysis datasets (ERA-40 and ERA-Interim). An intercomparison between observational datasets shows that the ECMWF reanalyses have significant biases in rainfall, for example severely overestimating rainfall during the season of Kerimt over the Ethiopian Highlands. When evaluated against the rain gauge data, the climate models, particularly the high-resolution HiGAM model, are able to provide a good representation of the regional rainfall over Ethiopia. Errors in the simulation of the interannual variability of rainfall in the HiGAM model are associated with biases in the large-scale circulation over the tropical Indian Ocean.
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Diro, G.T., Toniazzo, T., Shaffrey, L. (2011). Ethiopian Rainfall in Climate Models. In: Williams, C., Kniveton, D. (eds) African Climate and Climate Change. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3842-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3842-5_3
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