Studio della convezione durante il monsone africano: osservazioni e modellazione della
precipitazione e del ruolo della circolazione regionale sulla composizione atmosferica
The improvement of knowledge and understanding of the West African Monsoon (WAM) is a
fundamental scientific issue with implications on economy, health, water resources and food
security in West African countries. In a region where agriculture is mainly rain fed, a delay in the
rainy season onset or a dry year could compromise food and water security and lead to dearth
conditions. The natural interannual and interseasonal variability of the WAM and the dramatic
change from wet conditions (1950s-1960s) to much drier ones (1960s-today) over West Africa
represents one of the world strongest variation in the 20th century.
Mesoscale convective systems (MCS) are responsible for the 80% of the rain production in the sub-
Saharan region during the rainy season (June-September), playing a key role in the rainfall
variability over a large domain of spatial and temporal scales. The annual variability of MCSs in
West Africa is driven by monsoon circulation, which provides favourable conditions for convection
formation in the Sahelian area.
An increase in the vulnerability of West African societies to climate variability is expected for the
next decades as demands on resources increase in association with growing population and for
those reasons predictions at various scales of the WAM is a key issue for West African countries.
Further motivation comes from the need to quantify the role of the WAM on the global climate.
Africa is one of the largest and less known sources of dust and aerosols, which plays a major role in
radiative forcing and in cloud microphysics. Furthermore Africa emits the largest amount of
biomass burning emissions with a strong interhemispheric transition between West Africa in boreal
winter to Central and Southern Africa in boreal summer following the location of the dry season in
each hemisphere.
Moreover emissions due to urban pollution of large African cities are poorly known due to a lack of
in-situ measurements. Satellite observations indicates that large areas in West Africa appear to be
characterized by industrial activity, traffic, biomass burning from house fires that can have a great
impact on air quality and possibly damage vegetation growth and agricultural production.
In this work we have approached three issues: (1) how mesoscale models describe the dynamics of
MCS (2) how to improve them in order to improve water cycle, precipitation and deep convection
analysis and (3) which dynamical mechanisms drive the chemical composition of the atmosphere in
Africa
Firstly, the ability of the mesoscale meteorological model BOLAM (BOlogna Limited Area Model)
in reproducing convection in West Africa has been tested against other meteorological models and
rainfall measurements. Models performed simulations of the propagation of a MCS observed to
cross part of West Africa in August 2005. An evaluation of precipitation simulated by mesoscale
models is carried out. It has been found that the BOLAM model is capable to reproduce the
structure and the associated precipitation of the observed squall line even if it overestimates
precipitation amount with respect to the reference satellite estimations and produces a eastward
shifted rain band. The models intercomparison showed that convective precipitation forecast in
West Africa is a difficult issue to be addressed.
To address this issue we have developed and implemented into the BOLAM model a nudging
scheme based on the use of satellite observations of cloud top brightness temperature to correct the model humidity profiles. The nudging approach is based on the continuous assimilation of
METEOSAT infrared brightness temperatures within the model in order to trigger convection,
where observations show the presence of large convective systems. The nudging also inhibits
convection, when the model reproduces unrealistic convective precipitation and coherently modifies
the dynamical fields. It is shown that the assimilation scheme improves the geographical
distribution and time evolution of the MCSs reproduced by the model; the impact of assimilation is
positive up to 13 hours after the end of the nudging period. It is also shown that the nudging
improves the simulated amount and spatial distribution of precipitation.
In order to upscale the results obtained on a single event, we performed a seasonal mesoscale
simulation covering west Africa during the whole monsoon season. Therein the nudging scheme is
used throughout the period to obtain a reanalysis for the June-August 2006 period. The assimilation
of cloud top brightness temperature greatly improves the spatial patterns and the amount of rainfall
generated by the BOLAM model over a seasonal time-scale.
The last issue studied in the present work regards the transport of pollutants and greenhouse gases
in the African continent. We used BOLAM mesoscale model simulations, nudged with infrared
radiance temperature, to estimate the convective impact in the upper troposphere and to assess the
fraction of air processed by convection. Comparison between simulated convective transport and
aircraft measurements shows that BOLAM model correctly reproduces the location and the vertical
structure of convective outflow. Model-aided analysis indicates that convection can influence the
composition of the upper troposphere above the level of main outflow for an event of deep
convection close to the observation site and that deep convection occurring in the central Sahelian
region has a likely role in convective transport in the upper troposphere.
Then we focused on the long-range transport of biomass burning gases out of West Africa, which
has been recognised to have important implications for the global oxidizing capacity of the
atmosphere and global climate change. Mid and upper-tropospheric pollutant plumes with enhanced
levels of trace gases and aerosols were observed over the southern coast of West Africa during
August 2006 as part of the AMMA wet season field campaign. Runs using the BOLAM mesoscale
model including biomass burning CO tracers were used to confirm an origin from central African
fires. Modelled tracer results showed that pollutants resided for between 9 and 12 days over Central
Africa before being transported for 4 days, in the case of the mid-troposphere plume, and 2 days in
the case of the upper tropospheric plume to the measurement location over the southern part of
West Africa