IMPALA
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Reading
Department Name: Meteorology
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Planned Impact
IMPALA research will have significant impact locally, nationally and regionally in Africa as well as globally via the following beneficiaries and pathways.
FCFA Regional Consortia adaptation and impacts researchers and regional climate information providers will have direct access to new scientific understanding on, and improved simulations of, African climate variability and change via inclusion in the established Africa-focused process evaluation group (PEG). CP4-Africa climate change simulations will be disseminated through the NERC JASMIN data cluster for regional consortia to test multi-model projection robustness in key stakeholder-relevant local processes and extremes often poorly represented in coarser resolution models.
Model development Scientists in Africa: The 5 African model evaluation and development scientists in IMPALA will make extended visits to the Met Office focused on METUM evaluation, development and training. They and their institutes will be offered the opportunity to install MetUM technical infrastructure and support for its configuration and application, developing local and regional expertise which is currently in very limited supply.
Policymakers: Policy briefings on improved reliability of model predictions relevant to climate resilience and adaptation planning across Africa will be delivered to UK Government through DfID and, via the Met Office Hadley Centre Knowledge Integration team, DECC. Internationally they will be communicated to the Conferences of the Parties and the Nairobi Work Programme of the UNFCCC and IPCC through active engagement in its scientific assessments and special reports. Close contact will be maintained with the African Climate Policy Centre and the African Development Bank.
People and communities in Africa and beyond: The ultimate beneficiaries of the research will be people of sub-Saharan Africa and IMPALA scientists will work with the CCKE Unit to assist in generating cross-programme outputs, e.g. material demonstrating improved capability to assess risks of key agriculture-relevant rainfall events, for their user training workshops and interactions with other DFID programmes and broader capacity development and adaptation activities.
Operational weather, seasonal forecasting and climate service capability in Africa: IMPALA model developments will imply improved representation of processes important for short-range to seasonal forecasting. With the MetUM being used across all timescales these developments will rapidly deliver improved weather and seasonal forecasts relevant to existing severe weather to seasonal forecasting activities the Met Office is already feeding directly into as well as to future programmes such as SHEAR funded by DFID.
Scientific community, CMIP6 and other modelling centres: To broaden the Africa-lens approach to the international stage IMPALA's methodology for model diagnosis, understanding and improvement will be disseminated through papers, at international science meetings and included in the planned CMIP6 benchmarking and evaluation software tools (overseen by the WCRP Working Group for Coupled Models co-chaired by the PI).
Cross programme Activities: IMPALA scientists will work with the CCKE Unit to ensure full engagement in cross-programme activities and knowledge transfer through relevant networks. Scientists from regional consortia will be included in the Africa PEG to enable a rapid exchange of model developments, datasets and understanding and ideas on relevant metrics of model performance.
Wider FCFA programme activities through the Programme Executive Committee (PEC): The PI will work with the Programme Management Unit and PEC to increase IMPALA impact and reach beyond FCFA. The PI and CO-Is have broad experience in communicating work on African science to inter-disciplinary scientists and policy makers through their engagement in previous DFID or NERC projects and are already active in many outreach events in Africa.
FCFA Regional Consortia adaptation and impacts researchers and regional climate information providers will have direct access to new scientific understanding on, and improved simulations of, African climate variability and change via inclusion in the established Africa-focused process evaluation group (PEG). CP4-Africa climate change simulations will be disseminated through the NERC JASMIN data cluster for regional consortia to test multi-model projection robustness in key stakeholder-relevant local processes and extremes often poorly represented in coarser resolution models.
Model development Scientists in Africa: The 5 African model evaluation and development scientists in IMPALA will make extended visits to the Met Office focused on METUM evaluation, development and training. They and their institutes will be offered the opportunity to install MetUM technical infrastructure and support for its configuration and application, developing local and regional expertise which is currently in very limited supply.
Policymakers: Policy briefings on improved reliability of model predictions relevant to climate resilience and adaptation planning across Africa will be delivered to UK Government through DfID and, via the Met Office Hadley Centre Knowledge Integration team, DECC. Internationally they will be communicated to the Conferences of the Parties and the Nairobi Work Programme of the UNFCCC and IPCC through active engagement in its scientific assessments and special reports. Close contact will be maintained with the African Climate Policy Centre and the African Development Bank.
People and communities in Africa and beyond: The ultimate beneficiaries of the research will be people of sub-Saharan Africa and IMPALA scientists will work with the CCKE Unit to assist in generating cross-programme outputs, e.g. material demonstrating improved capability to assess risks of key agriculture-relevant rainfall events, for their user training workshops and interactions with other DFID programmes and broader capacity development and adaptation activities.
Operational weather, seasonal forecasting and climate service capability in Africa: IMPALA model developments will imply improved representation of processes important for short-range to seasonal forecasting. With the MetUM being used across all timescales these developments will rapidly deliver improved weather and seasonal forecasts relevant to existing severe weather to seasonal forecasting activities the Met Office is already feeding directly into as well as to future programmes such as SHEAR funded by DFID.
Scientific community, CMIP6 and other modelling centres: To broaden the Africa-lens approach to the international stage IMPALA's methodology for model diagnosis, understanding and improvement will be disseminated through papers, at international science meetings and included in the planned CMIP6 benchmarking and evaluation software tools (overseen by the WCRP Working Group for Coupled Models co-chaired by the PI).
Cross programme Activities: IMPALA scientists will work with the CCKE Unit to ensure full engagement in cross-programme activities and knowledge transfer through relevant networks. Scientists from regional consortia will be included in the Africa PEG to enable a rapid exchange of model developments, datasets and understanding and ideas on relevant metrics of model performance.
Wider FCFA programme activities through the Programme Executive Committee (PEC): The PI will work with the Programme Management Unit and PEC to increase IMPALA impact and reach beyond FCFA. The PI and CO-Is have broad experience in communicating work on African science to inter-disciplinary scientists and policy makers through their engagement in previous DFID or NERC projects and are already active in many outreach events in Africa.
Organisations
Publications
Daleu C
(2020)
Memory Properties in Cloud-Resolving Simulations of the Diurnal Cycle of Deep Convection
in Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
Harvey N
(2022)
The impact of surface heterogeneity on the diurnal cycle of deep convection
in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
Hirons L
(2018)
The Impact of Indian Ocean Mean-State Biases in Climate Models on the Representation of the East African Short Rains
in Journal of Climate
Wainwright C
(2019)
The impact of air-sea coupling and ocean biases on the seasonal cycle of southern West African precipitation
in Climate Dynamics
| Description | The Indian Ocean Dipole - a system of varying sea-surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean - is known to exert a strong control on rainfall in East Africa between October and December. Our research (Hirons and Turner, 2018) examines the climate models used in the most recent IPCC assessment report and finds that a model's ability at capturing the connection between East African rainfall variations and sea surface temperature patterns is governed by its overall simulation of the current climate. Around half of the models studied are found to have winds from the east, across the Indian Ocean, that are too strong. These winds feedback onto the ocean surface temperatures and are amplified, resulting in too much moisture being carried to East Africa at this time of year. This results in the models having too much rain in the October-December season. The implications of this study are that further effort is needed to understand ocean-atmosphere processes over the Indian Ocean, in order to gain a better representation of climate in East Africa, and thereby have greater confidence in seasonal forecasts or climate projections for the region. The seasonal cycle of rainfall over southern West Africa is characterised by a mid-summer dry period, interrupting the summer monsoon rains. Unfortunately, this is misrepresented in the coupled models of the ocean and atmosphere that are often used to inform IPCC climate projections, limiting our confidence in these projections. Work has shown (Wainwright et al., 2019) that these biases in rainfall stem from errors in sea-surface temperature in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, which feed-back on the seasonal cycle of rainfall and cause it to be too wet in mid-summer. The implications of this study are that further effort is needed to understand and remove coupled ocean-atmosphere errors over the Atlantic Ocean in order to improve confidence in future climate projections for West African rainfall. High resolution simulations of the diurnal cycle of convection have shown that the history of the previous day's convection is important in determining the evolution of the diurnal cycle on the following day (Daleu et al, 2020). When the effect of thermodynamic structures (Temperature and moisture perturbations) from the previous days convection are removed the convection on the following day tends to develop small scale weak convective cells, however when these structures are maintained the convection on the following day tends to develop fewer larger scale more intense convective clouds which persist for longer. This memory effect is likely to be important for simulating the diurnal cycle of convection in climate models where convection is represented by parametrization schemes and is not typically accounted for in current climate models. |
| Exploitation Route | These results can inform future climate model deveolpment and intepretation of climate change predictions or seasonal forecasts |
| Sectors | Environment |
| Description | Oral presentation at the "Good Hope for Earth Sciences" joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA assembly, 27 August-1 September 2017, Cape Town, South Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Oral presentation given by PDRA Dr Linda Hirons at the "Good Hope for Earth Sciences" joint IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA assembly, 27 August-1 September 2017, Cape Town, South Africa in session JM 4 - FUTURE CLIMATE FOR THE AFRICAN CONTINENT (IAMAS and IAPSO). Presentation title, "Large-scale drivers of variability in the East African short rains" on Monday 28 August. A publicationin an ISI journal eventually developed out of this work: "The impact of Indian Ocean mean-state biases on the representation of the East African short rains" https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0804.1 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.iapso-iamas-iaga2017.com/index.php/future-climate-for-the-african-continent-iamas-and-ia... |