ABSTRACT:In August and September 2007 media and aid organizations reported on a severe flood in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa caused by a sequence of extreme rain events. However, the reporting was partly controversial and much was speculated about how unusual the flood event was. Here, we analyse various observational data sets in order to assess and to compare the spatio-temporal characteristics and intensity of the flood and the associated rain events. The return times are estimated from daily precipitation time series at fine spatial resolution, and the potential causes are disclosed in a global and regional context.Satellite data reveal that the flood was not large scale but confined to the main river basins in sub-Saharan West Africa. Nonetheless, abundant rainfall prevailed over large parts of Western Africa extending north into the Western Sahara, particularly during the second half of August and the beginning of September 2007. In detail, various precipitation data sets differ considerably in terms of the monthly anomalies, demonstrating the difficulty to delineate meteorological extreme events even at a sub-continental scale and during the most recent past. Return times typically range between 1 and 50 years with high spatial heterogeneity but amount to 1200 years in the regional mean over the Upper Volta Basin. Among the potential causes we identify a La Niña event in the tropical Pacific, anomalous heating in the tropical Atlantic coming along with a greater depth of the monsoonal westerlies, and enhanced activity of African easterly waves, both evident in 2-6 day zonal wind and outgoing longwave radiation variance anomalies.

Abstract. The usage of data from commercial microwave link (CML) networks for scientific purposes is becoming increasingly popular, in particular for rain rate estimation. However, data acquisition and availability is still a crucial problem and limits research possibilities. To overcome this issue, we have developed an open-source data acquisition system based on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). It is able to record transmitted and received signal levels of a large number of CMLs simultaneously with a temporal resolution of up to 1 s. We operate this system at Ericsson Germany, acquiring data from 450 CMLs with minutely real-time transfer to our database. Our data acquisition system is not limited to a particular CML hardware model or manufacturer, though. We demonstrate this by running the same system for CMLs of a different manufacturer, operated by an alpine ski resort in Germany. There, the data acquisition is running simultaneously for four CMLs with a temporal resolution of 1 s. We present an overview of our system, describe the details of the necessary SNMP requests and show results from its operational application.

WHAT: Eighty-seven participants from 18 countries met to discuss the prospect for rainfall measurement and high-resolution mapping based on commercial microwave links in Africa. Experts from Europe and Israel provided training to African students, scientists, and meteorologists on this innovative method.

Commercial microwave link networks allow for the quantification of path integrated precipitation because the attenuation by hydrometeors correlates with rainfall between transmitter and receiver stations. The networks, operated and maintained by cellphone companies, thereby provide completely new and country wide precipitation measurements. As the density of traditional precipitation station networks worldwide is significantly decreasing, microwave link derived precipitation estimates receive increasing attention not only by hydrologists but also by meteorological and hydrological services. We investigate the potential of microwave derived precipitation estimates for streamflow prediction and water balance analyses, exemplarily shown for an orographically complex region in the German Alps (River Ammer). We investigate the additional value of link derived rainfall estimations combined with station observations compared to station and weather radar derived values. Our river runoff simulation system employs a distributed hydrological model at 100 Â 100 m grid resolution. We analyze the potential of microwave link derived precipitation estimates for two episodes of 30 days with typically moderate river flow and an episode of extreme flooding. The simulation results indicate the potential of this novel precipitation monitoring method: a significant improvement in hydrograph reproduction has been achieved in the extreme flooding period that was characterized by a large number of local strong precipitation events. The present rainfall monitoring gauges alone were not able to correctly capture these events.

Abstract. The usage of data from commercial microwave link (CML) networks for scientific purposes is becoming increasingly popular, in particular for rain rate estimation. However, data acquisition and availability is still a crucial problem and limits research possibilities. To overcome this issue, we have developed an open source data acquisition system based on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). It is able to record transmitted- and received signal levels of a large number of CMLs simultaneously with a temporal resolution of up to one second. We operate this system at Ericsson Germany, acquiring data from 450 CMLs with minutely real time transfer to our data base. Our data acquisition system is not limited to a particular CML hardware model or manufacturer, though. We demonstrate this by running the same system for CMLs of a different manufacturer, operated by an alpine skiing resort in Germany. There, the data acquisition is running simultaneously for four CMLs with a temporal resolution of one second. We present an overview of our system, describe the details of the necessary SNMP requests and show results from its operational application.