Publication in Climate Dynamics
09/27/2023In the WASCAL WRAP2.0 project LANDSURF we published the paper "Robustness of climate indices relevant for agriculture in Africa deduced from GCMs and RCMs against reanalysis and gridded observations" (Abel et al. 2023) in the journal Climate Dynamics. The question of how well climate models are able to reproduce agricultural indices goes hand in hand with a number of preconditions such as the adequate simulation of the rainy season.
We have shown that these are generally well simulated in areas with one rainy season, but the models have problems when a region is characterized by two rainy seasons. The quality of regional climate models depends on the driving data set and the region under consideration, although regional models are certainly able to improve the results of global models. This is particularly evident in the representation of agricultural indices. However, it could also be shown that there is a need for further development of the models in the area of land surface processes. Nevertheless, it can be stated that regional models always show an added value compared to global models in the simulation of agricultural indices.
Abel, D., Ziegler, K., Gbode, I. E., Weber, T., Ajayi, V. O., Traoré, S. B., and Paeth H. (2023): „Robustness of climate indices relevant for agriculture in Africa deduced from GCMs, RCMs, reanalysis, and gridded observations”. Climate Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06956-8
