Simulation of Temperature Extremes Over West Africa With MPAS ...

A large ensemble of 51 simulations with the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) has been applied to assess its ability to reproduce extreme temperatures and heat waves in the area of West Africa. With its global approach the model avoids transition errors influencing the performance of limited...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tanimoune, Laouali Ibrahim, Smiatek, Gerhard, Kunstmann, Harald, Abiodun, Babatunde J.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: John Wiley and Sons 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5445/ir/1000165841
https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000165841
Description
Summary:A large ensemble of 51 simulations with the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) has been applied to assess its ability to reproduce extreme temperatures and heat waves in the area of West Africa. With its global approach the model avoids transition errors influencing the performance of limited area climate models. The MPAS simulations were driven with sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice extent as the only boundary condition. The results reveal moderate cold biases in the range from −0.6° to −0.9°C for the daily mean temperature and −1.2° to −2.0°C for the area mean of the daily maximum temperature. The bias in the number of tropical nights ranges from +3 to −10 days. An underestimation by up to 50% is also present regarding the number of summer days. The heat wave duration index is underestimated regionally by 10%–60%. MPAS simulations are generally closer to the reanalysis results than they are to the observational reference. The results from long term runs and from short term runs with selected ...