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Cited by 39Climate variability and modelsHydrology and Drought AnalysisMeteorological Phenomena and Simulations

Representation of multidecadal sahel rainfall variability in 20th century reanalyses.

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Berntell, Ellen, Zhang, Qiong, Chafik, Léon, Körnich, Heiner·2018·Scientific Reports
DOI 10.1038/s41598-018-29217-9PMC PMC6053360
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Abstract

Abstract Summer rainfall in the Sahel region has exhibited strong multidecadal variability during the 20th century causing dramatic human and socio-economic impacts. Studies have suggested that the variability is linked to the Atlantic multidecadal variability; a spatially persistent pattern of warm/cold sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic. In the last few years, several promising century-long reanalysis datasets have been made available, opening up for further studies into the dynamics inducing the observed low-frequency rainfall variability in Sahel. We find that although three of the 20th century ECMWF reanalyses show clear multidecadal rainfall variability with extended wet and dry periods, the timing of the multidecadal variability in two of these reanalyses is found to exhibit almost anti-phase features for a large part of the 20th century when compared to observations. The best representation of the multidecadal rainfall variability is found in the ECMWF reanalysis that, unlike the other reanalyses (including NOAA’s 20th century), do not assimilate any observations and may well be a critical reason for this mismatch, as discussed herein. This reanalysis, namely ERA-20CM, is thus recommended for future studies on the dynamics driving the multidecadal rainfall variability in Sahel and its linkages to the low-frequency North Atlantic oceanic temperatures.

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  • Rainfall in the Sahel has increased since the 1980s, but has not recovered to pre-drought levels.

    “Rainfall in the Sahel has increased since the 1980s, but has not recovered to pre-drought levels (Nicholson et al., 2000;Dong and Sutton, 2015;Berntell et al., 2018).”

    From The tropical atlantic observing system (2019) · cites this paper as Berntell et al., 2018

    The Introduction describes a drought in the 1970s and 1980s followed by rainfall recovery. The CRU observations section also reports wet conditions from 2000 onward. Neither passage establishes that rainfall remained below pre-drought levels. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Authors
Berntell, E., Zhang, Q., Chafik, L., & Körnich, H.
Affiliations
  • Stockholm University (SE)
  • Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (NO)
  • Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SE)
Corresponding author
Zhang, Qiong
ORCID
Venue
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2018-07-19
Volume
8
Issue
1
Pages
10937-10937
ISSN
2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41598-018-29217-9
PMC
PMC6053360
OpenAlex
W2884074350
Cited by
39
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1
FWCI
2.78
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Diva portal (Dalarna University Library) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Vetenskapsr&amp;#x00E5;det (2017-04232)
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
multidecadal variability, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, 20th Century Reanalysis, ECMWF reanalysis, observation assimilation, North Atlantic sea surface temperature, summer precipitation, dry and rainy seasons, low-frequency ocean variability

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