Mplications of Projected Temperature Over West Africa for the 21st Century Based on the Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 And 8 .5 Wm −2

Abstract

Projected changes in air surface temperature for the 21st century using Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5 Wm −2 were analysed over selected domain of West Africa. Fourteen general circulation model historical temperature simulations evaluated using Taylor diagram, Normalised Mean Absolute Error, Normalised Root Mean Square Error were used for the projection. The analyses are done to address the challenges of climate change impact assessment over this highly vulnerable region of interest. The skilful models for temperature simulation over Guinean Savannah (GS), Western Sahel (WS), Lower Sahel (LS), and Eastern Sahel (ES) are selected for the projection analysis. ES and WS are expected to be significantly hotter throughout the 21st century with reference to 1985-2004 simulations. While there would be a delayed onset at the LS and GS region. The significant increase in temperature at ES and WS may result in destruction of infrastructure and properties, reduction in crop production, flooding and its associated consequences such as devastation of farms and loss of government revenues, if no adaptation and mitigation strategy is put in place