Influence of soil‐moisture and land use change on precipitation in the Volta Basin of West Africa

Kunstmann, Harald; Jung, Gerlinde

doi:10.1080/15715124.2007.9635301

Cited by 39 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…They are defined here as derived by Schär et al (1999) and mentioned in, e.g., Kunstmann and Jung (2007) and Asharaf et al (2012) as…”

Section: Atmospheric Water Balance Computationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such atmospheric-terrestrial water balance studies take care of the entire regional water cycle, which is understood to be interlinked in a complex way. For instance, changes in soil moisture condition can be related to changes in precipitation through land-atmosphere feedback mechanisms (Kunstmann and Jung 2007). A better knowledge of the atmosphericterrestrial water balance will provide vital hydrometeorological information related to water resources in the considered region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of studies (e.g., Findell and Eltahir 2003;Koster et al 2004;Anyah et al 2008) have argued that the influence of local soil moisture changes on precipitation is largest in arid and semiarid regions dominated by convective precipitation, like Kenya. These soil moisture-precipitation interactions have been studied with the concepts of precipitation recycling ratio and precipitation efficiency (Eltahir and Bras 1996;Schär et al 1999;Kunstmann and Jung 2007), which emphasize the significance of evapotranspiration on local precipitation. At river basin scale, both advection and evapotranspiration contribute to precipitation (Trenberth 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kenya and East Africa in general are among these regions. The lack of data can be mitigated by the use of regional climate model (RCM) data for atmospheric-terrestrial water balance study (e.g., Kunstmann and Jung 2007;Music and Caya 2007;Roberts and Snelgrove 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Joint atmospheric-terrestrial water balances for East Africa: a WRF-Hydro case study for the upper Tana River basin

Kerandi

Arnault

Laux

et al. 2017

Theor Appl Climatol

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For an improved understanding of the hydrometeorological conditions of the Tana River basin of Kenya, East Africa, its joint atmospheric-terrestrial water balances are investigated. This is achieved through the application of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and the fully coupled WRF-Hydro modeling system over the MathioyaSagana subcatchment (3279 km 2 ) and its surroundings in the upper Tana River basin for 4 years (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014). The model setup consists of an outer domain at 25 km (East Africa) and an inner one at 5-km (Mathioya-Sagana subcatchment) horizontal resolution. The WRF-Hydro inner domain is enhanced with hydrological routing at 500-m horizontal resolution. The results from the fully coupled modeling system are compared to those of the WRF-only model. The coupled WRF-Hydro slightly reduces precipitation, evapotranspiration, and the soil water storage but increases runoff. The total precipitation from March to May and October to December for WRF-only (974 mm/year) and coupled WRF-Hydro (940 mm/year) is closer to that derived from the Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) data (989 mm/year) than from the TRMM (795 mm/year) precipitation product. The coupled WRF-Hydro-accumulated discharge (323 mm/year) is close to that observed (333 mm/ year). However, the coupled WRF-Hydro underestimates the observed peak flows registering low but acceptable NSE (0.02) and RSR (0.99) at daily time step. The precipitation recycling and efficiency measures between WRF-only and coupled WRF-Hydro are very close and small. This suggests that most of precipitation in the region comes from moisture advection from the outside of the analysis domain, indicating a minor impact of potential land-precipitation feedback mechanisms in this case. The coupled WRF-Hydro nonetheless serves as a tool in quantifying the atmospheric-terrestrial water balance in this region.

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“…They are defined here as derived by Schär et al (1999) and mentioned in, e.g., Kunstmann and Jung (2007) and Asharaf et al (2012) as…”

Section: Atmospheric Water Balance Computationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Joint atmospheric-terrestrial water balances for East Africa: a WRF-Hydro case study for the upper Tana River basin

Kerandi

Arnault

Laux

et al. 2017

Theor Appl Climatol

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“…The concept of precipitation recycling has been explored in many studies focusing on land surface-atmosphere interactions (e.g., Eltahir and Bras 1994;Kunstmann and Jung 2007;Lettau et al 1979;Szeto et al 2008). The so-called precipitation-recycling ratio is used to quantify the contribution of local evaporation to precipitation in the same region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of boreal hydroelectric reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling as simulated by the CRCM5: a case study of the La Grande River watershed, Canada

Irambona¹,

Music

Nadeau

et al. 2016

Theor Appl Climatol

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Located in northern Quebec, Canada, eight hydroelectric reservoirs of a 9782-km 2 maximal area cover 6.4% of the La Grande watershed. This study investigates the changes brought by the impoundment of these reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling. Two 30-year climate simulations, corresponding to pre-and post-impoundment conditions, were used. They were generated with the fifthgeneration Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5), fully coupled to a 1D lake model (FLake). Seasonal temperatures and annual energy budget were generally well reproduced by the model, except in spring when a cold bias, probably related to the overestimation of snow cover, was seen. The difference in 2-m temperature shows that reservoirs induce localized warming in winter (+0.7 ± 0.02°C) and cooling in the summer (−0.3 ± 0.02°C). The available energy at the surface increases throughout the year, mostly due to a decrease in surface albedo. Fall latent and sensible heat fluxes are enhanced due to additional energy storage and availability in summer and spring. The changes in precipitation and runoff are within the model internal variability. At the watershed scale, reservoirs induce an additional evaporation of only 5.9 mm year −1 (2%). We use Brubaker's precipitation recycling model to estimate how much of the precipitation is recycled within the watershed. In both simulations, the maximal precipitation recycling occurs in July (less than 6%), indicating weak land-atmosphere coupling. Reservoirs do not seem to affect this coupling, as precipitation recycling only decreased by 0.6% in July.

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Tracking atmospheric water pathways by direct evaporation tagging: A case study for West Africa

Knoche

Kunstmann

2013

JGR Atmospheres

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[1] One of the central questions in hydrological research is where and to what extent evaporated water of a region returns as precipitation in another region. This study addresses this question and presents a detailed process-based approach implemented into a regional climate model. It allows tagging and tracking of the moisture evaporating from a given region into the atmosphere until it returns to the land surface as precipitation. Our approach is fully three-dimensional and enables the detailed consideration of vertical transport mechanisms for tagged water. We present a case study for the region around Lake Volta in West Africa. The simulation demonstrates the performance of the regional model and the implemented tagging mechanism. It shows the evolution of the tagged moisture field and reveals details of the transport: Moisture evaporated from Lake Volta is initially transported predominantly to the east and north, lifted by convective processes and then transported in upper layers to the west far away from the source of evaporation. The results indicate that the coupling between boundary layer and higher levels through convective processes can be essential for the fate of tagged water substances. Detailed analysis for a 2 month period in the rainy season 1998 shows that locally up to 6% of precipitating water originates from the Lake Volta region. Less than 2% of the evaporated water is locally recycled as precipitation in the source area. A further 10% precipitates in the rest of the Volta Basin.Citation: Knoche, H. R., and H. Kunstmann (2013), Tracking atmospheric water pathways by direct evaporation tagging: A case study for West Africa,

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Influence of soil‐moisture and land use change on precipitation in the Volta Basin of West Africa

Cited by 39 publications

References 23 publications

Joint atmospheric-terrestrial water balances for East Africa: a WRF-Hydro case study for the upper Tana River basin

Joint atmospheric-terrestrial water balances for East Africa: a WRF-Hydro case study for the upper Tana River basin

Impacts of boreal hydroelectric reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling as simulated by the CRCM5: a case study of the La Grande River watershed, Canada

Tracking atmospheric water pathways by direct evaporation tagging: A case study for West Africa

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