Assessment of the performance of CORDEX Regional Climate Models in Simulating Eastern Africa Rainfall
This study evaluates the ability of 10 regional climate models (RCMs) from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) in simulating the characteristics of rainfall patterns over eastern Africa. The seasonal climatology, annual rainfall cycles, and interannual variability of RCM...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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American Meteorological Society
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13807 |
| _version_ | 1848748445094903808 |
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| author | Endris, H. Omondi, P. Jain, S. Lennard, C. Hewitson, B. Chang’a, L. Awange, Joseph Dosio, A. Ketiem, P. Nikulin, G. Panitz, H. Büchner, M. Stordal, F. Tazalika, L. |
| author_facet | Endris, H. Omondi, P. Jain, S. Lennard, C. Hewitson, B. Chang’a, L. Awange, Joseph Dosio, A. Ketiem, P. Nikulin, G. Panitz, H. Büchner, M. Stordal, F. Tazalika, L. |
| author_sort | Endris, H. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This study evaluates the ability of 10 regional climate models (RCMs) from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) in simulating the characteristics of rainfall patterns over eastern Africa. The seasonal climatology, annual rainfall cycles, and interannual variability of RCM output have been assessed over three homogeneous subregions against a number of observational datasets. The ability of the RCMs in simulating large-scale global climate forcing signals is further assessed by compositing the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) events. It is found that most RCMs reasonably simulate the main features of the rainfall climatology over the three subregions and also reproduce the majority of the documented regional responses to ENSO and IOD forcings. At the same time the analysis shows significant biases in individual models depending on subregion and season; however, the ensemble mean has better agreement with observation than individual models. In general, the analysis herein demonstrates that the multimodel ensemble mean simulates eastern Africa rainfall adequately and can therefore be used for the assessment of future climate projections for the region. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T07:05:09Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-13807 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T07:05:09Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | American Meteorological Society |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-138072017-09-13T15:01:03Z Assessment of the performance of CORDEX Regional Climate Models in Simulating Eastern Africa Rainfall Endris, H. Omondi, P. Jain, S. Lennard, C. Hewitson, B. Chang’a, L. Awange, Joseph Dosio, A. Ketiem, P. Nikulin, G. Panitz, H. Büchner, M. Stordal, F. Tazalika, L. Interannual variability Climate models Rainfall Climatology ENSO Model comparison This study evaluates the ability of 10 regional climate models (RCMs) from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) in simulating the characteristics of rainfall patterns over eastern Africa. The seasonal climatology, annual rainfall cycles, and interannual variability of RCM output have been assessed over three homogeneous subregions against a number of observational datasets. The ability of the RCMs in simulating large-scale global climate forcing signals is further assessed by compositing the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) events. It is found that most RCMs reasonably simulate the main features of the rainfall climatology over the three subregions and also reproduce the majority of the documented regional responses to ENSO and IOD forcings. At the same time the analysis shows significant biases in individual models depending on subregion and season; however, the ensemble mean has better agreement with observation than individual models. In general, the analysis herein demonstrates that the multimodel ensemble mean simulates eastern Africa rainfall adequately and can therefore be used for the assessment of future climate projections for the region. 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13807 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00708.1 American Meteorological Society fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Interannual variability Climate models Rainfall Climatology ENSO Model comparison Endris, H. Omondi, P. Jain, S. Lennard, C. Hewitson, B. Chang’a, L. Awange, Joseph Dosio, A. Ketiem, P. Nikulin, G. Panitz, H. Büchner, M. Stordal, F. Tazalika, L. Assessment of the performance of CORDEX Regional Climate Models in Simulating Eastern Africa Rainfall |
| title | Assessment of the performance of CORDEX Regional Climate Models in Simulating Eastern Africa Rainfall |
| title_full | Assessment of the performance of CORDEX Regional Climate Models in Simulating Eastern Africa Rainfall |
| title_fullStr | Assessment of the performance of CORDEX Regional Climate Models in Simulating Eastern Africa Rainfall |
| title_full_unstemmed | Assessment of the performance of CORDEX Regional Climate Models in Simulating Eastern Africa Rainfall |
| title_short | Assessment of the performance of CORDEX Regional Climate Models in Simulating Eastern Africa Rainfall |
| title_sort | assessment of the performance of cordex regional climate models in simulating eastern africa rainfall |
| topic | Interannual variability Climate models Rainfall Climatology ENSO Model comparison |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13807 |