This project will improve our knowledge and understanding of the nature and variability of African easterly wave characteristics and the processes that determine the predictability of African easterly waves at daily-to-intraseasonal timescales. The work is planned around two complementary themes: (i) variability of AEWs and (ii) predictability of AEWs. The variability-work will combine statistical analysis of observations and NWP analyses supported by idealized modeling and a case-study approach to determine the extent to which AEW characteristics vary at daily-to-intraseasonal timescales and why. The predictability work will be explored using forecast sensitivity analyses and will interact strongly with and benefit from the variability work.
AEWs provide an opportunity to understand atmospheric predictability for a class of phenomenon where dry and moist dynamics are of equal importance, unlike midlatitude systems that are primarily associated with dry dynamics. Increased knowledge and understanding of the variability and predictability of AEWs is important for weather forecasters concerned with the West African region as well as those interested in the potential for tropical cyclogenesis downstream. The knowledge gained in this project will be used to update the diagnostics on our webpages used for routine monitoring of AEWs and AEW-activity that are used by such forecasters. AEWs are responsible for a significant amount of rainfall during the boreal summer, this work is also applicable to a range of applications important for society including hydrology (and flood prediction), agriculture (and crop prediction) and health (including malaria risk assessments). While such applications will not be dealt with in this project, efforts will be made to communicate the results of this research to the relevant communities. One way to do this will be through communication with scientists working in these areas within the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) project.
