Review of recent developments and the future prospective in West African atmosphere/land interaction studies

Xue, Yongkang; Bone, Aaron; Taylor, Christopher M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0120-3198. 2012 Review of recent developments and the future prospective in West African atmosphere/land interaction studies. International Journal of Geophysics, 2012, 748921. 12, pp. 10.1155/2012/748921

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Abstract/Summary

This paper reviews West African land/atmosphere interaction studies during the past decade. Four issues are addressed in this paper: land data development, land/atmosphere interactions at seasonal-interannual scales, mesoscale studies, and the future prospective. The development of the AMMA Land Surface Model Intercomparison Project has produced a valuable analysis of the land surface state and fluxes which has been applied in a number of large-scale African regional studies. In seasonal-interannual West African climate studies, the latest evidence from satellite data analyses and modeling studies confirm that the West African region has a climate which is particularly sensitive to land surface processes and there is a strong coupling between land surface processes and regional climate at intraseasonal/seasonal scales. These studies indicate proper land surface process representations and land status initialization would substantially improve predictions and enhance the predictability of West African climate. Mesoscale studies have revealed new understanding of how soil moisture heterogeneity influences the development of convective storms over the course of the diurnal cycle. Finally, several important issues regarding to the future prospective are briefly addressed.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1155/2012/748921
Programmes:	CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Biogeochemistry > BGC Topic 2 - Biogeochemistry and Climate System Processes > BGC - 2.3 - Determine land-climate feedback processes to improve climate model predictions
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Reynard
ISSN:	1687-885X
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Open Access article - click on Official URL link for full text
NORA Subject Terms:	Meteorology and Climatology Hydrology
Date made live:	17 Apr 2012 11:26 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/16221

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