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Postprocessing of simulated precipitation for impact research in West Africa. Part II: A weather generator for daily data

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Abstract

Data from global and regional climate models refer to grid cells and, hence, are basically different from station data. This particularly holds for variables with enhanced spatio-temporal variability like precipitation. On the other hand, many applications like for instance hydrological models require atmospheric data with the statistical characteristics of station data. Here, we present a dynamical-statistical tool to construct virtual station data based on regional climate model output for tropical West Africa. This weather generator (WEGE) incorporates daily gridded rainfall from the model, an orographic term and a stochastic term, accounting for the chaotic spatial distribution of local rain events within a model grid box. In addition, the simulated probability density function of daily precipitation is adjusted to available station data in Benin. It is also assured that the generated data are still consistent with other model parameters like cloudiness and atmospheric circulation. The resulting virtual station data are in excellent agreement with various observed characteristics which are not explicitly addressed by the WEGE algorithm. This holds for the mean daily rainfall intensity and variability, the relative number of rainless days and the scaling of precipitation in time. The data set has already been used successfully for various climate impact studies in Benin.

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Acknowledgments

I thank the Climatic Research Unit for providing the CRU gridded precipitation data set and the Direction de la Météorologie Nationale in Benin for supplying the BDMET station data. This work was supported by the Federal German Minister of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant No. 07 GWK 02 and by the Ministry of Science and Research (MWF) of the Federal State of Northrhine-Westfalia under grant No. 223-21200200.

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  1. Institute of Geography, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany

    Heiko Paeth

  2. Meteorological Institute, University of Bonn, Auf dem Hügel, 53121, Bonn, Germany

    Malte Diederich

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  1. Heiko Paeth
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Correspondence to Heiko Paeth.

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Paeth, H., Diederich, M. Postprocessing of simulated precipitation for impact research in West Africa. Part II: A weather generator for daily data. Clim Dyn 36, 1337–1348 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-010-0840-0

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