Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies

RESEARCH

 

NOAA Strategic Goal 2: Understand Climate Variability and Change to Enhance Society’s Ability to Plan and Respond

Climate Effects/Controls on Mesoscale Processes

NOAA/NWS/International Activities Office – Collaboration and Cooperation within the ACMAD Core Demonstration Project in Climate Prediction between ACMAD and CIMMS

Lamb (primary – CIMMS at OU), LeLe, Segele, Mbainayel

Funding Type: CIMMS Task III (Program Manager – Rob Masters)

Objectives
Continued research collaboration and cooperation between the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) and CIMMS.

Accomplishments
Research collaboration and cooperation between the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) and CIMMS continued strongly in the past year. CIMMS continued to fund and/or supervise three graduate students and one Post-Doctoral scientist from Africa whose research focuses on key weather- and climate-related problems of their countries. Those students come from Ethiopia (Segele, Ph.D. in Meteorology, completed), Niger (Lele, M.S. in Meteorology, completed; Ph.D. in meteorology, started), and Chad (Mbainayel, M.S. in Meteorology, recently commenced). A large paper derived from the Ethiopian student’s Ph.D. Dissertation was submitted to the International Journal of Climatology in 2007. In addition, CIMMS played a major role in the deployment the ARM Program’s (U.S. Department of Energy) Mobile Facility in Niamey (near ACMAD) for all of 2006, and in securing and facilitating funding for University of Niamey scientists to analyze ARM data collected in Niamey. The leader of the University of Niamey team (Professor Abdelkrim Ben Mohamed) also serves as Chair of the ACMAD Scientific Advisory Council. In support of the ARM Mobile Facility deployment in Niamey, CIMMS issued monthly and seasonal reports on the progress and quality of the West African monsoon at Niamey for 2005 and 2006. This work now is being incorporated into an overview paper on the Niamey deployment that soon will be submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research. A key figure is shown below.

This project is ongoing.

Annual cycle of Niamey climate for 2005-2006.

Annual cycle of Niamey climate for 2005-2006.