The possible role of local air pollution in climate change in West Africa

The climate of West Africa is characterized by a sensitive monsoon system that is associated with marked natural precipitation variability. This region has been and is projected to be subject to substantial global and regional-scale changes including greenhouse-gas-induced warming and sea-level rise, land-use and land-cover change, and substantial biomass burning. We argue that more attention should be paid to rapidly increasing air pollution over the explosively growing cities of West Africa, as experiences from other regions suggest that this can alter regional climate through the influences of aerosols on clouds and radiation, and will also affect human health and food security. We need better observations and models to quantify the magnitude and characteristics of these impacts

Effects of the baroclinic adjustment on the tropopause in the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis

In this work, we study the mean tropopause structure from the National Center for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalysis in the framework of baroclinic adjustment theories, focusing on the impact of baroclinic eddies on the mean tropopause height. In order to measure the effects of such perturbations, we introduce an appropriate global index that selects events of high baroclinic activity and allows us to distinguish the phases of growth and decay of baroclinic waves. We then composite the tropopause mean structure before and after baroclinic events, finding that baroclinic disturbances cause the zonally averaged midlatitude winter tropopause height to rise. Our results establish the importance of baroclinic adjustment processes for midlatitude tropopause dynamics