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High-resolution simulations of West African climate using regional climate model (RegCM3) with different lateral boundary conditions

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Abstract

To downscale climate change scenarios, long-term regional climatologies employing global model forcing are needed for West Africa. As a first step, this work examines present-day integrations (1981–2000) with a regional climate model (RCM) over West Africa nested in both reanalysis data and output from a coupled atmospheric–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM). Precipitation and temperature from both simulations are compared to the Climate Research Unit observations. Their spatial distributions are shown to be realistic. Annual cycles are considerably correlated. Simulations are also evaluated with respect to the driving large-scale fields. RCM offers some improvements compared to the AOGCM driving field. Evaluation of seasonal precipitation biases reveals that RCM dry biases are highest on June–August around mountains. They are associated to cold biases in temperature which, in turn, are connected to wet biases in precipitation outside orographic zones. Biases brought through AOGCM forcing are relatively low. Despite these errors, the simulations produce encouraging results and show the ability of the AOGCM to drive the RCM for future projections.

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Acknowledgement

These simulations have been done at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy). Therefore, the authors would like to thank the Physics of Weather and Climate Group scientists: Prof. Filippo Giorgi and Dr. Fred Kusharsky for providing the computing facilities. Thanks as well to Prof. William J. Gutowski, Jr. from Iowa State University and to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Physique de l’Atmosphere et de l’Ocean—Simeon Fongang, Ecole Superieure Polytechnique, University Cheikh Anta Diop, BP 5085, Dakar-Fann, Dakar, Senegal

    M. B. Sylla & A. T. Gaye

  2. Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, Seaver College of Science and Engineering, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    J. S. Pal

  3. Howard University Program in Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Washington, DC, USA

    G. S. Jenkins

  4. International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Earth System Physics Section, Physics of Weather and Climate Group, Trieste, Italy

    X. Q. Bi

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  1. M. B. Sylla
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  2. A. T. Gaye
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  4. G. S. Jenkins
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Correspondence to A. T. Gaye.

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Sylla, M.B., Gaye, A.T., Pal, J.S. et al. High-resolution simulations of West African climate using regional climate model (RegCM3) with different lateral boundary conditions. Theor Appl Climatol 98, 293–314 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-009-0110-4

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