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On the contribution of dynamic leaf area index in simulating the African climate using a regional climate model (RegCM4)

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Abstract

To understand the contribution of dynamic leaf area index (LAI) in simulating the surface African climate, two 12-year simulations were analysed. The first simulation operates in the satellite phenology (SP) mode; meanwhile the second simulation relies on activating the carbon-nitrogen (CN) module. Both simulations used the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) as a land-surface hydrology scheme. The first simulation was referred to as SP-VIC, and the second one was designated as CN-VIC. The results showed that CN-VIC severely decrease LAI more than the SP-VIC particularly over the Congo basin. This leads to a severe decrease in vegetative evaporation and transpiration and a pronounced increase of soil evaporation in comparison with the SP-VIC. As a result, a remarkable decrease of total evapotranspiration was observed leading to a high warm bias relative to an observational dataset. The rate of total precipitation was less than when it is simulated by the SP-VIC, due to a decrease in the amount of water vapour transferred to the atmosphere. To ensure a superior performance of the coupled CN-VIC system, the four surface parameters of the VIC all need to be recalibrated over Africa particularly over the Congo basin, so the vegetation status and surface climate of Africa can be properly simulated.

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Acknowledgements

OFID-ICTP is acknowledged for supporting the fund for the step program in ICTP institute. The climate group in international centre for theoretical physics (ICTP)—Earth System Physics (ESP) team is acknowledged for providing the RegCM code, computational facilities, and input data to run the model. Climate Research Unit (CRU) of University of East Anglia is acknowledged for providing observed data set of mean temperature. We are grateful for Dr. Martin Jung for providing the up-scaled flux-net dataset of latent and sensible heat fluxes (MTE datasets) through BGI portal. NCEP Reanalysis data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/. Dr. Enda O’Brien (Climate Scientist— CECCR, King Abdul-Aziz University Jeddah; Saudi Arabia) is acknowledged for improving the quality of the manuscript.

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  1. Egyptian Meteorological Authority, P.O. Box 11784, Qobry EL-Kobba, Cairo, Egypt

    Samy A. Anwar

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  1. Samy A. Anwar
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Correspondence to Samy A. Anwar.

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Anwar, S.A. On the contribution of dynamic leaf area index in simulating the African climate using a regional climate model (RegCM4). Theor Appl Climatol 143, 119–129 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-020-03414-x

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