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Response of regional circulation features to the Indian Ocean dipole and influence on Central Africa climate

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Abstract

The time-varying September-November relationship between the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and Central African (CA) rainfall has strengthened since the 1990s, implying an increasing IOD influence over CA rainfall. Using observational and reanalysis datasets covering the 1980–2016 period, this study examines the CA circulation response associated with the Indian Ocean dynamics during the September-December IOD events, since this circulation constitutes a key moisture transport feature for CA rainfall variability. The results show that during positive IOD events (pIOD), the moisture transport drivers over CA and the Indian Ocean (IO) are synchronous, leading to an increase in CA rainfall, whereas the reverse pattern is observed during negative IOD events (nIOD). The equatorial easterly (westerly) moisture transport driven by the anticyclonic (cyclonic) circulation in the northern tropical IO and the weakening (intensification) of the African Easterly Jet’s northern component (AEJ-N), leads to an increase (decrease) in CA rainfall during pIOD (nIOD). Warm (cold) SST anomalies in the eastern Indian Ocean during nIOD (pIOD) event, intensify (weaken) the large-scale upward motion, strengthening (weakening) the cyclonic circulation in the mid-troposphere, thus favoring a significant westerly (easterly) circulation. The AEJ-N weakening during pIOD events is associated with a strengthening of the meridional pressure gradient and a westward shift in the Saharan high location at the AEJ-N’s northern edge. The results also reveal a significant influence of the Atlantic during pIOD events, induced by its teleconnection with the IO, whose effects are more modulated by the IOD’s western pole warming than by the IOD-related SST gradient.

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Data availability

The HadISST data set is available at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/data/download.html. Reanalysis data used in this analysis were provided by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5, https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/home) and NASA (MERRA2, https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/daac-bin/​FTPSu​bset.​pl). The CHIRPS data set can be downloaded from http://chg.geog.ucsb.edu/data/chirps/index.html.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all the groups providing observational and reanalysis data which are found on their respective websites. I. Diallo acknowledges the support from the Center for Earth System Modeling, Analysis, and Data (ESMAD) at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. The authors thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions, which helped improve the paper’s quality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Environmental Modelling and Atmospheric Physics (LEMAP), Department of Physics, University of Yaounde 1, P.O. Box 812, Yaounde, Cameroon

    Foupouapegnigni Moihamette & Wilfried M. Pokam

  2. Department of Physics, Higher Teacher Training College, University of Yaounde 1, Yaounde, Cameroon

    Wilfried M. Pokam

  3. Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, San Jose State University (SJSU), San Jose, CA, 95192, USA

    Ismaila Diallo

  4. Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC), San Jose State University (SJSU), San Jose, CA, 95192, USA

    Ismaila Diallo

  5. Climate Research Lab, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Richard Washington

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  1. Foupouapegnigni Moihamette
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FM and WMP conceived and designed the research. FM performed material preparation, data collection, and analysis. FM wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors commented and revised on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Foupouapegnigni Moihamette.

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Moihamette, F., Pokam, W.M., Diallo, I. et al. Response of regional circulation features to the Indian Ocean dipole and influence on Central Africa climate. Clim Dyn (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-024-07251-w

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