Validation of TRMM and Other Rainfall Estimates with a High-Density Gauge Dataset for West Africa. Part I: Validation of GPCC Rainfall Product and Pre-TRMM Satellite and Blended Products

Nicholson, Sharon E.; Somé, Bonaventure; McCollum, Jeffrey R.; Nelkin, Eric; Klotter, Douglas; Berte, Y.; Diallo, B.; Gaye, I.; Kpabeba, G.; Ndiaye, Ousmane; Noukpozounkou, J. N.; Tanu, Michael; Thiam, Ababacar; Touré, Assize; Traoré, Abdoul Khadre

doi:10.1175/1520-0450(2003)042<1337:votaor>2.0.co;2

Cited by 150 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Rui and Yunfei (2005) have compared TRMM and GPCP and pointed to the relatively large bias between both data sets during heavy rain periods. The low performance of GPCP and GPCC at the monthly time scale and the generally higher bias in satellite-only analyses have been reported by Nicholson et al (2003). An intercomparison study with six rainfall data sets -inter-alia TRMM, GPCC, and GPCP -has revealed large discrepancies in interannual and decadal variations as well, in particular over the Congo Basin (Negrón Juárez et al, 2009).…”

Section: Comparison Of Observational Data Setsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Meteorological characteristics and potential causes of the 2007 flood in sub‐Saharan Africa

Paeth

Fink

Pohle

et al. 2011

Intl Journal of Climatology

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ABSTRACT:In August and September 2007 media and aid organizations reported on a severe flood in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa caused by a sequence of extreme rain events. However, the reporting was partly controversial and much was speculated about how unusual the flood event was. Here, we analyse various observational data sets in order to assess and to compare the spatio-temporal characteristics and intensity of the flood and the associated rain events. The return times are estimated from daily precipitation time series at fine spatial resolution, and the potential causes are disclosed in a global and regional context.Satellite data reveal that the flood was not large scale but confined to the main river basins in sub-Saharan West Africa. Nonetheless, abundant rainfall prevailed over large parts of Western Africa extending north into the Western Sahara, particularly during the second half of August and the beginning of September 2007. In detail, various precipitation data sets differ considerably in terms of the monthly anomalies, demonstrating the difficulty to delineate meteorological extreme events even at a sub-continental scale and during the most recent past. Return times typically range between 1 and 50 years with high spatial heterogeneity but amount to 1200 years in the regional mean over the Upper Volta Basin. Among the potential causes we identify a La Niña event in the tropical Pacific, anomalous heating in the tropical Atlantic coming along with a greater depth of the monsoonal westerlies, and enhanced activity of African easterly waves, both evident in 2-6 day zonal wind and outgoing longwave radiation variance anomalies.

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Section: Comparison Of Observational Data Setsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Meteorological characteristics and potential causes of the 2007 flood in sub‐Saharan Africa

Paeth

Fink

Pohle

et al. 2011

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…Data from geostationary satellites as well as infrared and passive microwave instruments on-board polar orbiting platforms, together with sounding observations have been merged to estimate daily rainfall from 1986 to the present. It is worth noting that the product has been validated over West Africa (Nicholson et al 2003).…”

Section: Precipitation Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent climatological trend of the Saharan heat low and its impact on the West African climate

et al. 2015

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the regional scale (for the high band pass) to the synoptic scale (for the low band pass signal). Despite a large variability in the temporal trends for 15 climate models from the CMIP5 project, the warming trend in the 90s is observed in the models ensemble mean. Nevertheless, large discrepancies are found between the NWP models reanalyses and the climate model simulations regarding the spatial and temporal evolutions of the SHL as well as its impact on West African climate at the different time scales. These comparisons also reveal that climate models represent the West African monsoon interactions with SHL pulsations quite differently. We provide recommendations to use some of them depending on the time scales of the processes at play (synoptic, seasonal, interannual) and based on key SHL metrics (location, mean intensity, global trend, interaction with the West African monsoon dynamics).

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“…e selection of the GPCC data as reference data for this evaluation study is based on the fact that they have been applied in similar model evaluation studies (e.g., [31,32]) over the West African region. Other studies including Gruber et al [39], Nicholson et al [37], Paeth et al [38], and Nikulin et al [29] have demonstrated the robustness of GPCC data in reproducing observed precipitation in the West African region. ese studies expressed confidence in this particular data set.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Due to the highly varying spatial distribution of precipitation, spatial density of observed precipitation data is crucial over West Africa. Studies (e.g., [37,38]) have indicated that the availability of high-quality data set especially in the case of precipitation over West Africa is problematic. Consequently, gridded observational open-source data sets become the practical option for model validation purposes within the region.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of CMIP5 Global Climate Models over the Volta Basin: Precipitation

Agyekum

Annor

Lamptey

et al. 2018

Advances in Meteorology

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A selected number of global climate models (GCMs) from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) were evaluated over the Volta Basin for precipitation. Biases in models were computed by taking the differences between the averages over the period of the models and the observation, normalized by the average of the observed for the annual and seasonal timescales. e Community Earth System Model, version 1-Biogeochemistry (CESM1-BGC), the Community Climate System Model Version 4 (CCSM4), the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model, Medium Range (MPI-ESM-MR), the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM1-M), and the multimodel ensemble mean were able to simulate the observed climatological mean of the annual total precipitation well (average biases of 1.9% to 7.5%) and hence were selected for the seasonal and monthly timescales. Overall, all the models (CESM1-BGC, CCSM4, MPI-ESM-MR, and NorESM1-M) scored relatively low for correlation (<0.5) but simulated the observed temporal variability differently ranging from 1.0 to 3.0 for the seasonal total. For the annual cycle of the monthly total, the CESM1-BGC, the MPI-ESM-MR, and the NorESM1-M were able to simulate the peak of the observed rainy season well in the Soudano-Sahel, the Sahel, and the entire basin, respectively, while all the models had difficulty in simulating the bimodal pattern of the Guinea Coast. e ensemble mean shows high performance compared to the individual models in various timescales.

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Validation of TRMM and Other Rainfall Estimates with a High-Density Gauge Dataset for West Africa. Part I: Validation of GPCC Rainfall Product and Pre-TRMM Satellite and Blended Products

Cited by 150 publications

References 23 publications

Meteorological characteristics and potential causes of the 2007 flood in sub‐Saharan Africa

Meteorological characteristics and potential causes of the 2007 flood in sub‐Saharan Africa

Recent climatological trend of the Saharan heat low and its impact on the West African climate

Evaluation of CMIP5 Global Climate Models over the Volta Basin: Precipitation

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