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Evaluation of RegCM4 driven by CAM4 over Southern Africa: mean climatology, interannual variability and daily extremes of wet season temperature and precipitation

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Abstract

We present an analysis of a present-day climate simulation (1990–2009) for the Southern Africa region with the RegCM4 regional climate model (RCM, dx = 25 km ~0.22°) driven by the Community Atmospheric Model version 4 (CAM4) global climate model (GCM, dx = 1°). We assess the capability of the models to simulate the observed climate of the region with emphasis on precipitation, 2-m mean, minimum, and maximum temperature and large-scale circulation. The analysis focuses on seasonal climatologies, annual cycles, interannual variability, and extreme events. In addition to evaluating the performance of the models, we also attempt to assess the added value of the regional model compared to the driving one. With a few exceptions, we find that the models reproduce reasonably well the mean spatial patterns of 2-m temperature and precipitation, along with the associated seasonal cycle and interannual variability over selected sub-regions. Extreme indices of temperature and precipitation are also reasonably well reproduced. However, the RegCM4 substantially improves the simulation of daily precipitation frequency and duration of dry and wet events compared to CAM4 due to its higher resolution. The global and regional models exhibit quite different patterns of bias, an indication of the importance of internal variability and process representation for the simulation of surface climate. Given the good performance shown by the nested CAM4-RegCM4 system, we plan to use these models to generate an ensemble of projections for use in impact assessment studies for the region.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded under the project SOCOCA (Socioeconomic Consequences of Climate Change in Sub-equatorial Africa, http://www.mn.uio.no/geo/english/research/projects/sococa/index.html), sponsored by the Research Council of Norway.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth System Physics Section, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Strada Costiera 11, PO Box 586, 34151, Trieste, Italy

    Ismaïla Diallo, Filippo Giorgi & Graziano Giuliani

  2. Laboratoire de Physique de l’Atmosphère et de l’Océan Siméon Fongang (LPAO-SF), Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique, Université Cheikh Anta Diop (ESP-UCAD), Dakar-Fann, Senegal

    Ismaïla Diallo

  3. Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Blindern, PO Box 1047, N-0316, Oslo, Norway

    Sandeep Sukumaran & Frode Stordal

  4. New York University Abu Dhabi, P.O. Box 129188, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Sandeep Sukumaran

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  1. Ismaïla Diallo
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  2. Filippo Giorgi
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Correspondence to Ismaïla Diallo.

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Diallo, I., Giorgi, F., Sukumaran, S. et al. Evaluation of RegCM4 driven by CAM4 over Southern Africa: mean climatology, interannual variability and daily extremes of wet season temperature and precipitation. Theor Appl Climatol 121, 749–766 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1260-6

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