Skill of Sahel rainfall variability in four atmospheric GCMs forced by prescribed SST.
Open accessAbstract
The inter‐annual and long‐term variability of July–September regional rainfall over the central and western Sahel (16°W–20°E; 11.25°–18.75°N) is evaluated using 21 runs from four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) integrated from 1948. The skill is stronger at decadal time scales: each AGCM simulates quite successfully the rainfall decrease from the wet 1950–60s toward the dry 1970–90s although its amplitude is lower than observed. At inter‐annual time scales, the skill is smaller and decreases over time between the 1950–70s and the recent dry period; all AGCMs have a close to zero skill around the 1980s. This is not linked to a reduced AGCM sensivity to global SST but to their failure to reproduce the observed SST‐rainfall teleconnection changes, in particular the weakening (strengthening) linear relationship with the equatorial and southern Atlantic (equatorial Pacific).
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General circulation models fail to reproduce West African rainfall interannual variability.
“the general circulation models (GCMs) fail to reproduce WA rainfall interannual variability (Moron et al. 2003;Tippett 2006;Tippett and Giannini 2006).”
From Tropical Atlantic variability modes (1979-2002). Part I: Time-evolving SST modes related to West African rainfall (2008) · cites this paper as Moron et al. 2003
The Abstract reports that four AGCMs had weaker interannual skill than decadal skill for central and western Sahel rainfall, with skill near zero around the 1980s. But §4 reports moderate to strong skill for one model in earlier periods, so the paper does not support a categorical failure by GCMs to reproduce interannual rainfall variability across West Africa. (LLM, conf=0.89)
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- Authors
- Moron, V., Philippon, N., & Fontaine, B.
- Affiliations
- Centre de Recherche et d’Enseignement de Géosciences de l’Environnement (FR)
- CRC, UMR 5080 Faculté Sciences Gabriel Dijon France
- Venue
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Published
- 2003-12
- Volume
- 30
- Issue
- 23
- Pages
- n/a-n/a
- ISSN
- 0094-8276 (ISSN-L)
- 1944-8007
- OpenAlex
- W2025907225
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2022: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 1.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Geophysical Research Letters (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Hydrology and Drought Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations
- Keywords
- atmospheric general circulation model, model skill evaluation, sea surface temperature forcing, interannual rainfall variability, Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, equatorial Pacific, South Atlantic, Sahel drought
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