The WASCAL high-resolution regional climate simulation ensemble for West Africa: concept, dissemination, assessment

Heinzeller, Dominikus; Dieng, Diarra; Smiatek, Gerhard; Olusegun, Christiana; Klein, Cornelia; Hamann, Ilse; Salack, Seyni; Kunstmann, Harald

doi:10.5194/essd-2017-93

Cited by 14 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…For the GDD, the largest increase occurs over the Sahel region and changes in the maximum are a slightly more pronounced than changes in means for all crops. Changes in GDD are mainly due to the shift of the whole distribution to warmer values, and our results seem to confirm those from (Heinzeller et al, ), which suggest an increase of 1.5°C at the Coast of Guinea and of up to 3°C in the Sahel region under RCP4.5. For the maximum change in WAV, the largest increase is found over the Savanna region of up to 28% and changes in minimum exceed changes in means considerably, especially for sorghum.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Performance Analysis and Projected Changes of Agroclimatological Indices Across West Africa Based on High‐Resolution Regional Climate Model Simulations

et al. 2018

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In this study, we analyze a set of agroclimatological indices across West Africa and assess their projected changes for the future. We apply the regional climate model CCLM (COnsortium for Small-scale MOdelling in CLimate Mode) with a high spatial resolution of 0.11 ∘ (approximately 12 km) under current and future climate conditions, based on the emission scenario RCP4.5. The focus is on purely rainfall-based indices, that is, the onset (ORS), the cessation (CRS), and the length of the rainy season (LRS) and the joint rainfall-and temperature-based indices, that is, growing degree days (GDD) and the water availability (WAV), derived for maize, sorghum, and pearl millet across Guinea, Savanna, and Sahel. For the present, in general, the CCLM compares well to observations, represented by three different products. However, CCLM shows limitations in the representation of the CRS over Guinea with a delay of >30 days and the GDD and WAV over Sahel with biases up to 30% and 70% for all crops. For the future climate projections, ORS, CRS, and LRS are expected to be delayed up to 2 weeks for most regions, in particular for the period 2071-2100. The GDD is expected to increase by around 8% till 2021-2050 and by around 5% till 2071-2100 for all crops. The WAV is expected to be decreased by up to 10% in 2021-2050, and by up to 24% in 2071-2100 in Sahel, and <12% over Guinea and Savanna in both periods. In particular, we evaluate the added value of the high-resolution CCLM information for decision support in agricultural management. Key Points:• CCLM model results were evaluated in terms of agricultural indices for cropping of maize, sorghum, and pearl millet across three different agroecological zones in West Africa • High-resolution future climate projections indicate a shortening of the rainy seasons by approximately 2 weeks in the Sahel region till the end of the century • The projected decreases (increases) of rainfall (temperature) over the Sahel region would negatively impact on water availability (WAV) and growing degree days (GDD)

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Performance Analysis and Projected Changes of Agroclimatological Indices Across West Africa Based on High‐Resolution Regional Climate Model Simulations

et al. 2018

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“…CANRCM4 and WRF present the largest biases in mean precipitation, while the RCA4 has less bias in rainfall and temperatures data. All the three regional models perform better during the JJA period, which corresponds to the rainy season, confirming the ability of the selected models to reproduce the precipitation seasonal cycle [47,48]. All three RCMs have large positive biases in mean simulated historical rainfall compared to observed historical rainfall.…”

Section: Biases In Uncorrected and Corrected Historical Climate Simulsupporting

confidence: 59%

“…The outputs of two regional climates models of the CORDEX experiment at 50 km resolution and one high-resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) of the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and adapted land use (WASCAL) experiment at 12 km resolution were selected as climate projections. Only RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) 4.5 was used because of the limited computational resources available and the fact that the differences between RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 are minimal before 2040 [47]. CANRCM4-CANESM2 and RCA4-IPSL-CM5A are the two RCMs selected from the CORDEX experiment based and on their ability to reproduce the hydrological cycle in the Niger River basin [48].…”

Section: Climate Projectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-Resolution Integrated Hydrological Modeling of Climate Change Impacts on a Semi-arid Urban Watershed in Niamey, Niger

Boubacar¹,

Moussa²,

Yalo³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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This study evaluated the impact of climate change on water resources in a large semi-arid urban watershed located in Niamey Republic of Niger, West Africa. The watershed was modeled using the fully integrated surface-subsurface HydroGeoSpheremodel at a high spatial resolution. Historical (1980-2005) and projected (2020-2050) climate scenario derived from the outputs of three Regional Climate Models (RCM) under the RCP 4.5 scenario were statistically downscaled using the multiscale quantile mapping bias correction method. Results show that the bias correction method is optimum at daily and monthly scales, and increased RCM resolution does not improve the performance of the model. The three RCMs predict increases of up to 1.6% in annual rainfall and of 1.58°C for mean annual temperatures between the historical and projected periods. The durations of the Minimum Environmental Flow (MEF) conditions, required to supply drinking and agriculture water, were found to be sensitive to changes in runoff resulting from climate change. MEF occurrences and durations are likely to be greater for (2020-2030), and then they will be reduced for (2030-2050). All three RCMs consistently project a rise in groundwater table of more than 10 meters in topographically high zones where the groundwater table is deep and an increase of 2 meters in the shallow groundwater table.

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“…The simulated period for present day conditions is from January 1975 to December 2004, leaving one previous simulated year (1974) out of the analysis as a spin‐up period. For the future, two time‐slices are simulated for early and late 21st century, respectively (Heinzeller et al ., 2018): 2019–2049 (January 1, 2020‐December 31, 2049; referred as 2020–49) and 2069–2099 (referred as 2070–99). Two scenarios are simulated, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 (Van Vuuren et al ., 2011) and in both cases one year of spin up (2019 and 2069) is removed from the analysis.…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected changes in precipitation and temperature regimes and extremes over the Caribbean and Central America using a multiparameter ensemble of RegCM4

Vichot‐Llano

Martinez‐Castro²,

Bezanilla‐Morlot

et al. 2020

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Regional climate projections are developed four Central America and the Caribbean, based on a multiparameter ensemble formed by four configurations with different convective cumulus schemes with the regional model RegCM4 at 25 km grid spacing, driven by the HadGEM2‐ES global model under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The precipitation change projections indicate drier conditions compared to present in the near future (2020–2049) and far future (2070–2099) time slices. These drier conditions are statistically significant at the 90% confidence level over the eastern Caribbean, central Atlantic Ocean, and the western Pacific Ocean and are more pronounced in the far future time slice. For temperature, the warmer conditions are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level over the study region. The drier and warmer signals are greater in extension and magnitude in the RCP8.5 than for RCP4.5. Projected changes in precipitation and temperature extreme indices show a reduction of consecutive wet days and an increment of consecutive dry days, with a reduction of cold days and nights and an increase of warm days and nights. Lower precipitation along with increased intensity of extreme events are projected over the Greatest Antilles region.

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The WASCAL high-resolution regional climate simulation ensemble for West Africa: concept, dissemination, assessment

Cited by 14 publications

References 23 publications

Performance Analysis and Projected Changes of Agroclimatological Indices Across West Africa Based on High‐Resolution Regional Climate Model Simulations

Performance Analysis and Projected Changes of Agroclimatological Indices Across West Africa Based on High‐Resolution Regional Climate Model Simulations

High-Resolution Integrated Hydrological Modeling of Climate Change Impacts on a Semi-arid Urban Watershed in Niamey, Niger

Projected changes in precipitation and temperature regimes and extremes over the Caribbean and Central America using a multiparameter ensemble of RegCM4

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