The tropical cloud forest ecosystem in Western Equatorial Africa (WEA) is known to be sensitive to the presence of an extensive and persistent low-level stratiform cloud deck during the long dry season from June to September (JJAS). Here we present a new climatology of the diurnal cycle of the low-level cloud cover from surface synoptic stations over WEA during JJAS 1971–2019. For the period JJAS 2008–2019, we also utilized estimates of cloudiness from four satellite products, namely the Satellite Application Facility on Support to Nowcasting and Very Short Range Forecasting (SAFNWC) cloud classification, the Day and Night Microphysical Schemes (DMS/NMS) and cross-sections from CALIPSO and CloudSat (2B-GEOPROF-LIDAR). A comparison with surface stations reveals that the NMS at night together with SAFNWC at daytime yield the smallest biases. The climatological analysis reveals that low-level clouds persist during the day over the coastal plains and windward side of the low mountain ranges. Conversely, on their leeward sides, i.e. over the plateaus, a decrease of the low-level cloud frequency is observed in the afternoon, together with a change from stratocumulus to cumulus. At night, the low-level cloud deck reforms over this region with the largest cloud occurrence frequencies in the morning. Vertical profiles from 2B-GEOPROF-LIDAR reveal cloud tops below 3000 m even at daytime. The station data and the suitable satellite products form the basis to better understand the physical processes controlling the clouds and to evaluated cloudiness from reanalyses and models.
This study examines the diurnal to interannual variations of the stratiform cloud cover in May–October (1971–2019) from a 3‐hourly station database and from ERA5 reanalyses over western equatorial Africa (WEA). The main diurnal variations of the local‐scale fraction and genus of stratiform clouds are synthesized into three canonical diurnal types (i.e., “clear,” “clear afternoon,” “cloudy” days). The interannual variations of frequencies of the three diurnal types during the cloudiest months (JJAS) are mostly associated with two main mechanisms: a meridional shallow overturning cell associating more “cloudy” and less “clear” and “clear afternoon” days to anomalous southerlies below 900 hPa over and around WEA, anomalous ascent around 5°–7°N, anomalous northerlies between 875 and 700 hPa, and anomalous subsidence over the equatorial Atlantic. This circulation is strongly related to interannual variations of the equatorial Atlantic upwelling (i.e., more clouds when the upwelling is strong) associated with a meridional shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone over the Tropical Atlantic and adjacent continents. The second mechanism operates mostly in the zonal direction and involves again the coupled ocean–atmosphere system over the equatorial Atlantic, but also the remote El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). An anomalously cold equatorial Atlantic drives increased low‐level westerlies toward the Congo Basin. Warm ENSO events promote broad warm and easterly anomalies in the middle and upper troposphere, which increase the local static stability, and thus the local stratiform cloud cover over WEA. The present study suggests new mechanisms responsible for interannual variations of stratiform clouds in WEA, thus providing avenues of future research regarding the stability of the stratiform cloud deck under the ongoing differential warming of tropical ocean and land masses.
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