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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
earth and planetary sciences
A diagnostic evaluation of precipitation in CORDEX models over Southern Africa
Journal of Climate, Volume 26, No. 23, Year 2013
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Description
The authors evaluate the ability of 10 regional climate models (RCMs) to simulate precipitation over Southern Africa within the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) framework. An ensemble of 10 regional climate simulations and the ensemble average is analyzed to evaluate the models' ability to reproduce seasonal and interannual regional climatic features over regions of the subcontinent. All the RCMs use a similar domain, have a spatial resolution of ~50 km, and are driven by the Interim ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim; 1989-2008). Results are compared against a number of observational datasets. In general, the spatial and temporal nature of rainfall over the region is captured by all RCMs, although individual models exhibit wet or dry biases over particular regions of the domain. Models generally produce lower seasonal variability of precipitation compared to observations and the magnitude of the variability varies in space and time. Model biases are related to model setup, simulated circulation anomalies, and moisture transport. The multimodel ensemble mean generally outperforms individual models, with bias magnitudes similar to differences across the observational datasets. In the northern parts of the domain, some of the RCMs and the ensemble average improve the precipitation climate compared to that of ERA-Interim. The models are generally able to capture the dry (wet) precipitation anomaly associated with El Niño (La Niña) events across the region. Based on this analysis, the authors suggest that the present set of RCMs can be used to provide useful information on climate projections of rainfall over Southern Africa. © 2013 American Meteorological Society.
Authors & Co-Authors
Kalognomou, Evangelia Anna
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Greece, Thessaloniki
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Lennard, Christopher J.
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Greece, Thessaloniki
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Shongwe, Mxolisi Excellent
South Africa, Pretoria
South African Weather Service
Pinto, Izidine
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Greece, Thessaloniki
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Favre, Alice
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
France, Dijon
Biogéosciences Bgs
Kent, Michael
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Greece, Thessaloniki
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Hewitson, Bruce C.
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Greece, Thessaloniki
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Dosio, Alessandro
Belgium, Brussels
European Commission Joint Research Centre
Nikulin, Grigory N.
Sweden, Norrkoping
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute
Panitz, Hans Jürgen
Germany, Karlsruhe
Karlsruher Institut Für Technologie
Büchner, Matthias
Germany, Potsdam
Potsdam Institut Fur Klimafolgenforschung
Statistics
Citations: 126
Authors: 11
Affiliations: 8
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00703.1
ISSN:
08948755
Research Areas
Environmental
Study Approach
Quantitative