Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Evaluation of TIGGE precipitation forecasts over West Africa at intraseasonal timescale

  • Published:
Climate Dynamics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The study evaluated for the first time the ability of meteorological models of TIGGE to forecast the main features of the West African monsoon rainfall. Seven numerical models were retained over the 2008–2012 period and compared to satellite rainfall estimates. We focused on the seasonal cycle and in particular on the onset of the rainy season and on the intra-seasonal variability that are both of high importance for agriculture, water management and health sectors. We found that the seasonal latitudinal shift of the ITCZ is rather well predicted in terms of amplitude and timing by the different models although there is a systematic northward drift in the ITCZ latitude from the lead-times 1- to 10-day. Although the onset date of rainfall varies a lot according to the different definition in the literature, we also found good performance of TIGGE forecasts in predicting the onset date of the monsoon. The analysis of intra-seasonal variability revealed that the skill of TIGGE forecasts is decreasing with the lead-time from 1- to 15-day and the performance of the ensemble mean of all models overcomes the one of any individual models. Overall criteria used in this study (intra-seasonal fluctuations, onset and seasonal cycles), the skill of UKMO and ECMWF models is better than any other model. Based on such analysis it is likely than an ensemble mean based only on these two models would be more skillful than the ensemble mean based on the seven models. TIGGE forecasts represent a promising step towards the delivery of useful climate information to end-users of key sectors such as agriculture, water management, health and public safety.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bougeault P, Toth Z, Bishop C, Brown B, Burridge D, Chen D, Ebert E, Fuentes M, Hamill T, Mylne K, Nicolau J, Paccagnella T, Park YY, Parsons D, Raoult B, Schuster D, Silva Dias P, Swinbank R, Takeuchi Y, Tennant W, Wilson L (2010) The THORPEX interactive grand global ensemble (TIGGE). Bull Am Meteorol Soc 91:1059–1072

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fontaine B, Janicot S (1992) Wind field coherence and its variations over West Africa. J Clim 5:512–524

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fontaine B, Louvet S (2006) Sudan–Sahel rainfall onset: definition of an objective index, types of years, and experimental hindcasts. J Geophys Res 111:D20103. doi:10.1029/2005JD007091

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fontaine B, Philippon N (2000) Seasonal evolution of boundary layer heat content in the West African monsoon from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis (1968–1998). Int J Climatol 20:1777–1790

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fontaine B, Louvet S, Roucou P (2008) Definition and predictability of an OLR based West African monsoon onset. J Climatol, Int. doi:10.1002/joc.1674

    Google Scholar 

  • Huffman GJ, Adler RF, Bolvin DT, Gu G, Nelkin EJ, Bowman KP, Hong Y, Stocker EF, Wolff DB (2007) The TRMM multi-satellite precipitation analysis: quasi-global, multi-year, combined-sensor precipitation estimates at fine scale. J Hydrometeorol 8:38–55

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ingram KT, Roncoli MC, Kirshen PH (2002) Opportunities and constraints for farmers of west Africa to use seasonal precipitation forecasts with Burkina-Faso as a case study. Agric Syst 74:331–349

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Janicot S, Trzaska S, Poccard I (2001) Summer Sahel-ENSO teleconnection and decadal time scale SST variations. Clim Dyn 18:303–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Janicot S, Mounier F, Hall N, Leroux S, Sultan B, Kiladis GN (2009) Dynamics of the West African monsoon. Part IV: analysis of 25–90-day variability of convection and the role of the Indian monsoon. J Clim Am Meteorol Soc 22(6):1541–1565

    Google Scholar 

  • Janicot S, Caniaux G, Chauvin F, de Coëtlogon G, Fontaine B, Hall N, Kiladis G, Lafore JP, Lavaysse C, Lavender SL, Leroux S, Marteau R, Mounier F, Philippon N, Roehrig R, Sultan B, Taylor CM (2011) Intraseasonal variability of the West African monsoon. Atmos Sci Lett 12:58–66. doi:10.1002/asl.280

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kamsu-Tamo PH, Janicot S, Monkam D, Lenouo A (2014) Convection activity over the Guinean coast and Central Africa during northern spring from synoptic to intra-seasonal timescales. Clim Dyn 43(12):3377–3401

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liebmann B, Smith CA (1996) Description of a complete (interpolated) outgoing longwave radiation dataset. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 77:1275–1277

    Google Scholar 

  • Madden RA, Julian PR (1971) Detection of a 40–50 day oscillation in the zonal wind in the tropical Pacific. J Atmos Sci 28:702–708

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mason IB (2003) Binary events. In: Jolliffe IT, Stephenson DB (eds) Forecast verification—a practitioner’s guide in atmospheric science. Wiley, Chichester, pp 37–76. http://www.atmosfera.unam.mx/jzavala/TemSelModNum/Libros/Jolliffe,%20Stephenson%20(eds.).%20Forecast%20Verification..%20A%20Pract.pdf

  • Matthews AJ (2004) Intraseasonal variability over tropical Africa during northern summer. J Clim 17:2427–2440

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murakami M (1979) Large scale aspects of deep convective activity over the Gate area. Mon Weather Rev 107:994–1013

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ndiaye O, Goddard L, Ward MN (2009) Using regional wind fields to improve general circulation model forecasts of July–September Sahel rainfall. Int J Climatol 29:1262–1275. doi:10.1002/joc.1767

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ndiaye O, Ward NM, Thiaw WM (2011) Predictability of seasonal Sahel rainfall using GCMs and lead-time improvements through the use of a coupled model. J Clim 24:1931–1949

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Panareda A, Beljaars A (2008) ECMWF’s contribution to AMMA. ECMWF Newsl 115:19–27

    Google Scholar 

  • Rienecker MM, Suarez MJ, Gelaro R et al (2011) MERRA—NASA’s modern-era retrospective analysis for research and applications. J Clim 24:3624–3648. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00015.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saporta G (1990) Probabilités, analyse des données et statistiques. Technip 493:656

    Google Scholar 

  • Simmons A, Uppala C, Dee D, Kobayashi S (2007) ERA-Interim: new CMWF reanalysis products from 1989 onwards. ECMWF Newsl 110:25–35

    Google Scholar 

  • Sivakumar MVK (1988) Predicting rainy season potential from the onset of rains in Southern Sahelian and Sudanian climate zones of West Africa. Agric For Meteorol 42:295–305

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slingo J, Sperber K, Boyle J (1996) Intraseasonal oscillations in 15 atmospheric general circulation models: results from an AMIP diagnostic subproject. Clim Dyn 12:325–357

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sultan B, Janicot S (2000) Abrupt shift of the ITCZ over West Africa and intra-seasonal variability. Geophys Res Lett. doi:10.1029/1999GL011285

    Google Scholar 

  • Sultan B, Baron C, Dingkuhn M, Sarr B, Janicot S (2005) Agricultural impacts of large-scale variability of the West African monsoon. Agric For Meteorol 128(1–2):93–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sultan B, Janicot S, Correia C (2009) Medium lead-time predictability of intraseasonal variability of rainfall in West Africa. Weather Forecast 24:767–784

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vellinga M, Arribas A, Graham R (2012) Seasonal forecasts for regional onset of the West African monsoon. Clim Dyn. doi:10.1007/s00382-012-1520-z

    Google Scholar 

  • Vitard F, Molteni F (2010) Simulation of the Madden–Julian oscillation and its teleconnections in the ECMWF forecast system. Q J R Meteorol Soc 136:842–855

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waliser D, Stern M, Schubert S, Lau K (2003) Dynamical predictability of intraseasonal variability associated with the Asian summer monsoon. Q J R Meteorol Soc 129:2897–2925

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Bank (2008) Reports on environment issues by World Bank’s vulnerability and adaptation, climate change and poverty units

  • Xie P, Arkin PA (1996) Analysis of global monthly precipitation using gauge observations, satellite estimates, and numerical model prediction. J Clim 9:840–858

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This study has been funded by Grant ≠ ANR-08-VMCS-001 under the project PICREVAT. We thank Pascal Oettli for his valuable help. We also thank the reviewers for their fruitful comments. We are also thankful to NOAA-CIRES Climate Diagnostics Center (Boulder, CO) for providing the interpolated OLR dataset from their Web site (online at http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/). TRMM data were retrieved from the website http://www.trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov. We thank also the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS-NET) relied on NOAA/CPC to provide operational Rainfall Estimation algorithm RFE version 2.0 product. ERA-Interim was provided by the ECMWF Meteorological Archival and Retrieval System (MARS). MERRA data used in this study have been provided by the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center through the NASA GES DISC online archive. We are also indebted to the colleagues who made the TIGGE project happen and the data freely available.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d’Océanographie et de Climat: Expérimentations et Approches Numériques, Paris, France

    S. Louvet, B. Sultan, S. Janicot & P. H. Kamsu-Tamo

  2. Agence Nationale de l’Aviation Civile et de la Météorologie, Dakar, Sénégal

    O. Ndiaye

Authors
  1. S. Louvet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. B. Sultan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. S. Janicot
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. P. H. Kamsu-Tamo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. O. Ndiaye
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to S. Louvet.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Figure SM1a

Time-latitude diagrams of precipitation averaged over 10°W-10°E and 2008-2012 for RFE2 observations and 1-day forecast of every TIGGE models and of the TIGGE ensemble mean. (EPS 206 kb)

Figure SM1b

Same as Fig.3a but for the 5-day forecasts. (EPS 195 kb)

Figure SM1c

Same as Fig.3a but for the 10-day forecasts. (EPS 193 kb)

Figure SM2

a. Time-latitude diagrams of precipitation averaged over 10°W-10°E and 2008-2012 for RFE2 observations. b. Same as a. but with TRMM7. c. Daily mean of precipitation over JAS 2008-2012 period for RFE2. d. Same as c. but with TRMM7. e. Daily standard deviation of precipitation over JAS 2008-2012 period for RFE2 observations .f. Same as e. but with TRMM7. (EPS 4381 kb)

Figure SM3

Same as Figure 4b but with TRMM7. (EPS 4239 kb)

Figure SM4

Same as Figure 5 but with TRMM7 reference instead of RFE2. (EPS 3381 kb)

Figure SM5

Same as Figure 7 but with TRMM7 instead of RFE2. (EPS 1148 kb)

Figure SM6

Same as Figure 8 but with TRMM7 instead of RFE2. (EPS 879 kb)

Figure SM7

Equitable Threat Scores computed over Sudano-Sahelian region. Scores computed with TRMM7 instead of RFE2. (EPS 16 kb)

Figure SM8

As in Fig.11 but for 25-90-day filtered Sahelian rainfall from RFE2 and TRMM7 data. (EPS 12 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Louvet, S., Sultan, B., Janicot, S. et al. Evaluation of TIGGE precipitation forecasts over West Africa at intraseasonal timescale. Clim Dyn 47, 31–47 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2820-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2820-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation