West African Monsoon Climate Dynamics and Impacts: Past, Present and Future
A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Climatology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2020) | Viewed by 4717
Special Issue Editor
Interests: I am interested in climate dynamics and change, in Europe and Africa. In particular, my research focuses on the West African monsoon dynamics and teleconnections, in past, present, and future climates. I am also interested in climate impacts associated with the monsoonal dynamics in West Africa and in teleconnected regions.
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Climate in West Africa is dominated by the dynamics of the West African monsoon (WAM), which drives precipitation to the region during boreal summer. WAM dynamics is influenced by both local and remote forcings: Surface temperatures in the Tropical Atlantic and moisture–thermal gradients inland control intraseasonal variability, while sea surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Tropics control interannual and multidecadal variability. WAM dynamics plays a key role in determining climate impacts in the region. In particular, the variability of the rainy season is essential for crop productivity, as well as the occurrence of heavy rainfall events, which affects human and infrastructure security. WAM dynamics also impacts remote regions by modulating tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic and dust emission and transport from the Sahel.
In West Africa, human activities and natural ecosystems are highly sensitive to climate variability, which is particularly pronounced in the region and drove dramatic environmental changes in the past. During mid-Holocene, 6000 years ago, resulting from the combined effects of different Earth’s orbital parameters and local environmental feedback, precipitation was more abundant all over Northern Africa, Sahara was vegetated, and water bodies in West Africa were much larger than today. During the 20th century, in response to the combination of anthropogenic and natural climate forcings, monsoonal precipitation was characterized by a negative trend modulated by the alternation of wet and dry periods, which resulted in a devastating drought that affected the Sahel in the 1980s. Future climate projections respond to the increasing greenhouse gases’ radiative forcing, with a widespread intense warming in West Africa, whereas there is no unanimity on future precipitation trends.
This context makes West Africa a climate change hotspot and further efforts are demanded for the climate science community to fill the gaps in the understanding of climate dynamics, in the quest for reliable and usable climate predictions for the region. By assembling a comprehensive collection of papers reviewing existing literature and presenting original insights, this Special Issue aims at contributing to the progress in the knowledge of the past, present, and future of the West African monsoon dynamics, teleconnections, and impacts.
Dr. Marco Gaetani
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- West Africa
- Sahel
- Tropics
- Monsoon
- Teleconnections
- Climate dynamics
- Climate change
- Climate impacts
