Abstract
In this paper, daily characteristics of the Central Africa rainfall are assessed using the regional model REMO in the framework of contributions to the CORDEX-Africa project. The model is used to dynamically downscale two global climate models (MPI-ESM-LR and EC-EARTH) for the present (1981–2005) and future (2041–2065, 2071–2095) climate under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 emission scenarios. A substantial spatio-temporal variability of the daily precipitation characteristics is obtained, as well as varying inferences for individual indices. For the present days, both REMO’s runs capture reasonably well the mean seasonal rainfall, the frequency of wet days, the threshold of extreme rainfall, and the cumulative frequency of daily rainfall. The model better simulates the frequency of rainy days than their intensity. It is found that origins of model biases differ as a function of regions. Over the continent, boundary conditions tend to influence the spatial distribution of rainfall whereas over oceanic and coastal regions, REMO’s physics seems to dominate over the boundary forcing. The projected frequency of wet days shows a decrease along the twenty-first century over most part of the continent. Throughout the century, all scenarios of REMO decrease the rate of rainfall with increasing intensity, and which will be noticeable in the Sahelian region at late twenty-first century. Furthermore, the extreme event thresholds decrease over Sahelian regions and increase along the coastal regions.
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Acknowledgements
The REMO datasets were obtained from the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) in Hamburg through the project “Climate Change Scenarios for the Congo Basin.” The authors would like to thank data providers. This work is part of the International Joint Laboratory’s research “Dynamics of Land Ecosystems in Central Africa: A Context of Global Changes” (IJL DYCOCA/LMI DYCOFAC). Our gratitude is expressed to the anonymous reviewer for their constructive and useful suggestions.
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Tamoffo, A.T., Vondou, D.A., Pokam, W.M. et al. Daily characteristics of Central African rainfall in the REMO model. Theor Appl Climatol 137, 2351–2368 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-018-2745-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-018-2745-5