Study of aerosol direct and indirect effects and auto-conversion processes over the West African monsoon region using a regional climate model

Abstract

This study assesses the direct and indirect effects of natural and anthropogenic aerosols (e.g., black carbon and sulfate) over West and Central Africa during the West African monsoon (WAM) period (June–July–August). We investigate the impacts of aerosols on the amount of cloudiness, the influences on the precipitation efficiency of clouds, and the associated radiative forcing (direct and indirect). Our study includes the implementation of three new formulations of auto-conversion parameterization [namely, the Beheng (BH), Tripoli and Cotton (TC) and Liu and Daum (R6) schemes] in RegCM4.4.1, besides the default model’s auto-conversion scheme (Kessler). Among the new schemes, BH reduces the precipitation wet bias by more than 50% over West Africa and achieves a bias reduction of around 25% over Central Africa. Results from detailed sensitivity experiments suggest a significant path forward in terms of addressing the long-standing issue of the characteristic wet bias in RegCM. In terms of aerosol-induced radiative forcing, the impact of the various schemes is found to vary considerably (ranging from −5 to −25 W m−2).