全部 标题 作者
关键词 摘要

OALib Journal期刊
ISSN: 2333-9721
费用:99美元

查看量下载量

相关文章

更多...

Comparison of Rainy Season Onset, Cessation and Duration for Ghana from RegCM4 and GMet Datasets

DOI: 10.4236/acs.2016.62025, PP. 300-309

Keywords: Onset, Cessation, Duration of Rainy Season, GMet, Ghana, RegCM4

Full-Text   Cite this paper   Add to My Lib

Abstract:

The socio-economic sector of West African countries is rain-fed agriculture driven. Information regarding the onset, cessation and duration of the rainy season is thus, very essential. In this paper, a comparison of the onset, cessation and duration of the rainy season has been carried out using simulated rainfall data from the fourth generation Regional Climate Model (RegCM4) and rain gauge measurements from Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet), covering a period of 1998 to 2012. Similar onset and cessation dates were seen in both the simulated and guage rainfall measurements for the various agro-ecological zones, resulting in similar duration of the rainy season. The average duration of the rainy season were less than 200 days for the savannah and coastal zones whereas the duration of the rainy season were beyond 200 days for the forest and transition zones. The bias of these comparisons was less than 30 days and the root mean square error (RMSE) values were less than 15 days for all stations, except Saltpond. The Pearson’s correlation (r) typically ranged between 0.4 and 0.8. However, negative correlations were observed for Tamale in the savannah zone, and the entire coastal zone. These findings are indications that RegCM4 has the potential to clearly simulate the movement of the rain belt, and thus, could fairly determine the onset, cessation and duration of the rainy season. The findings have significant contributions to effective water resource management and food security in Ghana, as the thriving of these sectors depend on the dynamics of the rainfall seasons.

References

[1]  Owusu, K. and Waylen, P. (2009) Trends in Spatio-Temporal Variability in Annual Rainfall in Ghana (1951-2000). Weather, 64, 115-120.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wea.255
[2]  Amekudzi, L.K., Yamba, E., Preko, K., Asare, E.O., Aryee, J., Baidu, M. and Codjoe, N.A.S. (2015) Variabilities in Rainfall Onset, Cessation and Length of Rainy Season for the Various Agro-Ecological Zones of Ghana. Ecological Impacts of Climate Change, 3, 416-434.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cli3020416
[3]  Manzanas, R., Amekudzi, L., Preko, K., Herrera, S. and Gutierrez, J. (2014) A Comparison of Methods to Determine the Onset of the Growing Season in Nigeria. Climatic Change, 124, 805-819.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1100-9
[4]  Olaniran, O.J. (1983) The Onset of the Rains and the Start of the Growing Season in Nigeria. Nigerian Geographical Journal, 26, 81-88.
[5]  Olaniran, O. (1984) The Start and End of the Growing Season in the Niger River Basin Development Authority Area of Nigeria. Malaysian Journal of Tropical Geography, 9, 49-58.
[6]  Adejuwon, J., Balogun, E. and Adejuwon, S. (1990) On the Annual and Seasonal Patterns of Rainfall Uctuations in Sub-Saharan West Africa. International Journal of Climatology, 10, 839-848.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.3370100806
[7]  Odekunle, T. (2006) Determining Rainy Season Onset and Retreat over Nigeria from Precipitation Amount and Number of Rainy Days. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 83, 193-201.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00704-005-0166-8
[8]  Le Barbe, L., Lebel, T. and Tapsoba, D. (2002) Rainfall Variability in West Africa during the Years 1950-90. Int. J. Climate, 15, 187-202.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<0187:RVIWAD>2.0.CO;2
[9]  Cocheme, J., et al. (1967) An Agroclimatology Survey of a Semiarid Area in Africa South of the Sahara. Technical Note No. 86.
[10]  Benoit, P. (1977) The Start of the Growing Season in Northern Nigeria. Agricultural Meteorology, 18, 91-99.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0002-1571(77)90042-5
[11]  Omotosho, J. (2002) Synoptic Meteorology: Pathway to Seasonal Rainfall Prediction for Sustainable Agriculture and Effective Water Resources Management in West Africa but Nigeria in Particular. Journal of the Nigerian Meteorological Society, 3, 81-89.
[12]  Giorgi, F., Coppola, E., Solomon, F., Mariotti, L., Sylla, M., Bi, X., Elguindi, N., Diro, G., Nair, V., Giuliani, G., Turuncoglu, U., Cozzini, S., Guttler, I., Brien, T., Tawfik, A., Shalaby, A., Zakey, A., Steiner, A., Stordal, F., Sloan, L. and Brankovic, C. (2012) RegCM4: Model Description and Preliminary Tests over Multiple CORDEX Domains. Climate Research, 52, 7-29.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3354/cr01018
[13]  Browne, N. and Sylla, M. (2012) Regional Climate Model Sensitivity to Domain Size for the Simulation of the West African Summer Monsoon Rainfall. International Journal of Geophysics, 2012, 1-17.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/625831
[14]  Sultan, B. and Janicot, S. (2000) Abrupt Shift of the ITCZ over West Africa and Intra-Seasonal Variability. Geophysical Research Letters, 27, 3353-3356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/1999GL011285
[15]  Mounier, F., Janicot, S. and Kiladis, G.N. (2008) The West African Monsoon Dynamics Part III: The Quasi-Biweekly zonal Dipole. Journal of Climate, 21, 1911-1928.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2007JCLI1706.1
[16]  Qian, J.H. (2008) Why Precipitation Is Mostly Concentrated over Islands in the Maritime Continent. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 65, 14281441.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2007JAS2422.1
[17]  Qian, J.H., Robertson, A.W. and Moron, V. (2010) Interactions among ENSO, the Monsoons, and Diurnal Cycle in Rainfall Variability over Java, Indonesia. J Atmos Sci, 67, 35093524.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2010JAS3348.1
[18]  Dodd, D. and Jolliffe, I. (2001) Early Detection of the Start of the Wet Season in Semiarid Tropical Climates of Western Africa. International Journal of Climatology, 21, 1251-1262.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.640
[19]  Amekudzi, L.K., Bracher, A., Bramstedt, K., Rozanov, A., Bovensmann, H. and Burrows, J.P. (2008) Towards Validation of SCHIAMACHY Lunar Occultation NO2 Vertical Profiles. Advances in Space Research, 41, 1921-1932.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2007.06.055
[20]  Quansah, E., Amekudzi, L.K., Preko, K., Aryee, J., Boakye, R.O., Boli, D. and Salifu, M.R. (2014) Empirical models for Estimating Global Solar Radiation over the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Journal of Solar Energy, 2014, 1-6.

Full-Text

Contact Us

service@oalib.com

QQ:3279437679

WhatsApp +8615387084133