A fully coupled regional climate, 3D lake modeling system is used to investigate the physical mechanisms associated with the multiscale variability of the Lake Victoria basin climate. To examine the relative influence of different processes on the lake basin climate, a suite of model experiments were performed by smoothing topography around the lake basin, altering lake surface characteristics, and reducing or increasing the amount of large-scale moisture advected into the lake region through the four lateral boundaries of the model domain. Simulated monthly mean rainfall over the basin is comparable to the satellite (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) estimates. Peaks between midnight and early morning hours characterize the simulated diurnal variability of rainfall over the four quadrants of the lake, consistent with satellite estimates, although the simulated peaks occur a little earlier. It is evident in the simulations with smoothed topography that the upslope/downslope flow generated by the mountains east of the lake and the land–lake breeze circulations play important roles in influencing the intensity, the location of lake/land breeze fronts, and the horizontal extent of the land–lake breeze circulation, as well as lake basin precipitation. When the lake surface is replaced with marsh (water hyacinth), the late night and early morning rainfall maximum located over the western sector of the lake is dramatically reduced. Our simulations also indicate that large-scale moisture transported via the prevailing easterly trades enhances lake basin precipitation significantly. This is in contrast to the notion advanced in some of the previous studies that Lake Victoria generates its own climate (rainfall) through precipitation–evaporation–reprecipitation recycling only.

A coupled atmosphere–wave–ocean modeling system (CAWOMS) based on the integration of atmosphere–wave, atmosphere–ocean, and wave–current interaction processes is developed. The component models consist of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, the Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) model, and the Princeton Ocean Model (POM). The coupling between the model components is implemented by using the Model Coupling Toolkit. The CAWOMS takes into account various wave-related effects, including wave state and sea-spray-affected sea surface roughness, sea spray heat fluxes, and dissipative heating in atmosphere–wave coupling. It also considers oceanic effects such as the feedback of sea surface temperature (SST) cooling and the impact of sea surface current on wind stress in atmosphere–ocean coupling. In addition, wave–current interactions, including radiation stress and wave-induced bottom stress, are also taken into account. The CAWOMS is applied to the simulation of an idealized tropical cyclone (TC) to investigate the effects of atmosphere–wave–ocean coupling on TC intensity. Results show that atmosphere–wave coupling strengthens the TC system, while the thermodynamic coupling between the atmosphere and ocean weakens the TC as a result of the negative feedback of TC-induced SST cooling. The overall effects of atmosphere–wave–ocean coupling on TC intensity are determined by the balance between wave-related positive feedback and the negative feedback attributable to TC-induced SST cooling.

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A nested coupled model has been developed to investigate the two-way interactions between the regional climate of eastern Africa and Lake Victoria. The atmospheric component of the model is the North Carolina State University (NCSU) version of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) regional climate model (NCSU-RegCM2). The lake component of the model is based on the Princeton ocean model (POM).Three simulations, each 4 months long, have been performed for the short rains of eastern Africa of September through to December. The control experiment is based on the standard NCSU-RegCM2 model coupled to a one-dimensional model of Lake Victoria. The second experiment was based on the stand-alone three-dimensional primitive equation POM-Lake Victoria model forced by output from the atmospheric component of the control run. The third experiment is based on the integration of the coupled system of the NCSU-RegCM2 model where the one-dimensional lake model in the control run has been replaced by the three-dimensional POM hydrodynamical model for Lake Victoria.The results confirm that adopting the traditional modelling approach, in which the lake hydrodynamics are neglected and the formulation is based entirely on thermodynamics alone, is not entirely satisfactory for the Lake Victoria basin. Such a strategy precludes the transport of heat realistically within the lake, from the heat surplus regions to the cooler regions, and thereby results in a degraded simulation of the climate downstream over the rest of the lake and the surrounding land regions. The numerical simulations show that the southwestern region of the lake is an important source of warm water because it is relatively shallower and the water column is heated up much more quickly during the day than the rest of the lake. The result is that the surface temperature anomaly field from the all-lake area average consists of a gradient pattern with warmer water over the shallow region of the lake over the southeastern sector and a colder pool of water over the northeastern region, where the lake is relatively deeper. This pattern is also reproduced by the one-dimensional lake model. Some of the excess heat over the southeastern region is transported to the colder and deeper region over the northeastern part of the lake by prevailing surface wind flow. Through the lake-atmosphere coupling, the resulting asymmetric lake-surface temperature distribution modifies the overlying wind circulation, which in turn reduces the cloud cover and rainfall. This secondary feature in the surface temperature structure cannot be generated by the traditional nested climate models, such as the standard version of the NCAR-RegCM2 model, since the simple static lake model formulation is not capable of supporting horizontal mixing of water. Comparisons show that this feature is weaker in the RegCM2-POM coupled model than the corresponding pattern that we obtained in our previous study based on the 'stand-alone' POM lake model. In contrast, from the simple classical tex...