How a typical West African day in the future-climate compares with current-climate conditions in a convection-permitting
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How a typical West African day in the future-climate compares with current-climate conditions in a convection-permitting and parameterised convection climate model Rory G. J. Fitzpatrick 1 & Douglas J. Parker 1 & John H. Marsham 1 & David P. Rowell 2 & Lawrence S. Jackson 1 & Declan Finney 1 & Chetan Deva 1 & Simon Tucker 2 & Rachael Stratton 2 Received: 23 April 2019 / Accepted: 25 September 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract
Current-climate precipitation and temperature extremes have been identified by decision makers in West Africa as among the more impactful weather events causing lasting socioeconomic damage. In this article, we use a plausible future-climate scenario (RCP8.5) for the end of the twenty-first century to explore the relative commonness of such extremes under global warming. The analysis presented considers what a typical day in the future climate will feel like relative to current extrema. Across much of West Africa, we see that the typical future-climate day has maximum and minimum temperatures greater than 99.5% of currently experienced values. This finding exists for most months but is particularly pronounced during the Boreal spring and summer. The typical future precipitation event has a daily rainfall rate greater than 95% of current storms. These findings exist in both a future scenario model run with and without parameterised convection, and for many of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project version 5 ensemble members. Additionally, agronomic monsoon onset is projected to occur later and have greater inter-annual variability in the future. Our findings suggest far more extreme conditions in future climate over West Africa. The projected changes in temperature and precipitation could have serious socioeconomic implications, stressing the need for effective mitigation given the potential lack of adaptation pathways available to decision makers. Keywords Climate change . Africa . Impacts . Convection-permitting . Precipitation . Sahel
* Rory G. J. Fitzpatrick [email protected]
1
Institute of Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
2
Met Office, Exeter, UK
Climatic Change
1 Introduction The Inter-governmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) 5th assessment report (AR5) highlights the risks associated with a business-as-usual approach towards climate change. This approach is projected to lead to a 3–6 °C warming across the globe by the end of the twenty-first century. Such a rise is predicted, with high confidence, to lead to increased food insecurity and heightened health risks over West Africa. The risks of climate change are often felt disproportionately strongly by the most vulnerable communities, who also have less available pathways for adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change (IPCC AR5). Many weather related socioeconomic risks are associated with extremes of temperature or precipitation (Visman et al. 2017; Barry et al. 2018), although other metrics such as wind gusts and humidity can also pose challenges. There is a continued
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