THORPEX-Africa

Aida DIONGUE-NIANG,

André Kamga FOAMOUHOUE , Ernest AFIESIMAMA, Kwabena ASOMANIN, Amare BABU, Arona DIEDHIOU, Benjamin LAMPTEY, Abdalah MOKSSIT, Franklin OPIJAH, Eugene

POOLMAN,

Jim CAUGHEY, Dave PARSONS

THORPEX-Africa: the African regional contribution to the International

THORPEX programme

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• Background• Overall goal• Main objectives• Planned activities• Collaboration and Partnership

With AMMA

• Next steps

THORPEX-Africa: Background • 2006: Contributions from Scientists in and out of Africa

Collected by ACMAD and synthetized by WMO• First International African THORPEX Planning meeting, Ouagadougou,

February 2007 Present THORPEX programme Present the African THORPEX draft document Set up two Task Forces to write-up the Science Plan & study the RC

structure• THORPEX TF1 meeting, Dakar, September 2007

Rewrite the Science Plan Outline feasable tasks for Implementation Prepare the 2nd planning meeting

• 2nd International African THORPEX planning meeting,Karlsruhe, November 2007 Present the revised Science Plan Discuss some Implementation activities Propose the composition of the Regional Committee

• 1st Regional Committee meeting, SAWS, July 2008 Produce the draft of the Implementation Plan

Background (2)

• The WWRP /THORPEX African Science Plan (English version) is available on-line at :

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/wwrp/new/documents/thorpex_african_science_plan.pdf

The WWRP /THORPEX African Implementation Plan available at:http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/wwrp/new/documents/

thorpex_african_implementation_plan.pdf

Both English and French versions have been prepared and disseminated to Met services, academic organizations and institutes, research and users communities networks, institutional bodies.

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THORPEX-Africa Overall Goal

Provide the research to help reduce the adverse effects of meteorological and climate related disasters in the context of climate change for the benefit of Societies, the Economy and the Environment in Africa

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Promoting multidisciplinary

collaboration between research,

operational and user communities

Improving forecasts in Africa from daily to seasonal timescales

for key sector activities

Providing better knowledge of HIW

and assessing impact of weather forecast on the development

of mitigation strategies

Developing accurate and timely early

warnings in a form that can be readily used in decision-

making support tools

THORPEX-Africa Main Objectives

•Agriculture and food security•Health •Water Res. Management•Disaster Management•Transportation

•Heavy rainfall and floods•Severe winds•Sand and dust episodes •Late onset/early withdrawal of the rainy season•Dry spells and prolonged periods of drought

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DAOS1: Design of an

optimum network in Africa

DAOS2:Use of non

conventional observing systems

DAOS3: Improvement of

telecommunications facilities with WIS

PDP2: Development of

Seamless forecast from seasonal to daily timescales

PDP1: Predictive Skill of

high impact weather

SERA1: High-impact

weather information

System

SERA2: Forecast

verification and cost/benefit assessments

Planned activitiesPlanned activities

TIGGE

Predictability and

Dynamical Processes

Societal and Economic Research

Application

Data assimilation

and observing systems

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SERA1: High-impact weather information system

• Aim: Create user-friendly database available for use by the research , forecasting and user communities for integrated and multidisciplinary activities, decision and policy making

• Approach: Compiling high-impact weather events in each sub-region in Africa and collecting both weather and impact data to be stored to a designed information system that will be first based at UNESCO/ICTP (Trieste) and transferred to a centre in Africa

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Issue: Global Meteorological and climate-related disasters’s database are available Limited archived data, tools, computing and storage capacity in Africa: big limitation for research and applications activities

SERA2: Forecast verification and cost/benefits assessments

• Aim: Develop appropriate verification measures for each priority sector, Cost and benefit analysis for HIW.

• Approach: Carrying research in partnership with social and economic scientists to tailor verification systems, cost and benefit measurements of high-impact weather and forecasts respectively.

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Issues: Integration of climate and meteorological information in policy and decision making is low and most of the current verification systems are not user-oriented

Water ResourceWater ResourceManagementManagement

HealthHealth

Food Food securitysecurity

TransportTransport

EnergyEnergy

Disaster management

DAOS1: Design of an optimum observation network in Africa

• Aim:Make recommendations for a more optimal observing system in the whole continent to support High-impact Weather predictions.

• Approach: Building upon AMMA to extend monitoring of African conventional observing systems and radiosondes denial experiments to the whole continent. Assess the value of AMDAR data.

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Issue: The Observing System in Africa has been deteriorating over many years., although in West Africa the AMMA programme increased the number of stations, particularly the upper air stations

DAOS2: Enhance the use of non conventional observing systems

• Aim: Explore the potential of new observing technologies to provide additional observations that improve the skill of High-impact Weather forecasts.

• Approach: Use of the potential of Satellite and Aircraft data to improve i) spatial and temporal coverage ii) to explore their impact on the

quality of analyses and forecasts , particularly AMDAR data

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Issue: Many Satellite data already/soon available and potential of aircraft data not validated over Africa

DAOS3: Improvement of telecommunication facilities in Africa : through WIS-Africa?

• Aim:Develop in conjunction with WMO/CBS telecommunication strategies, in the framework of WMO Information System (WIS)

• Approach: Collaborating with WIS task team to conduct pilot projects to test or build African core components of WIS that meet THORPEX-Africa requirements

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Issue: Obsolescence of telecommunication facilities is a major constraint of data collection and dissemination, contributing to the limited quality of weather forecasts in Africa

Temp messages received at ECMWF on May 04, 2005

PDP1:High-impact weather predictability

• Aim: Improve our understanding of High-impact Weather events, assess their predictability and improve our ability to predict these events.

• Approach: Case studies of NWP

assesseement and modelling studies of key high-impact in African sub-regions

To feed the formation system

To contribute to AMMA/handbook

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Issue: Predictive skill of phenomena producing high-impact weather is still low for short –medium range although there are some promising research results

24h23h

21h19h 17h

Squall line over Niger: surface rainfall

PDP2: Development of a seamless forecasting system in Africa

Aim:

i. Improve our knowledge and understanding of the nature and causes of intraseasonal to seasonal variability and its impacts on weather statistics

ii. Provide a continuum of skillful weather/climate prediction system from daily to seasonal timescales that meet societal and economic needs in Africa

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Issue: Short range forecasts and seasonal outlooks are widely provided to users across Africa whereas there is the gap concerning weekly, biweekly and monthly forecasts. However, key socio-economical sectors (e.g. agriculture, health, water resources) need intra-seasonal weather information

• AMMA-THORPEX WG: High impact weather prediction and predictability (at “international level”)

• The Forecasters Handbook creation for West Africa to discuss and review current and new forecasting methods and tools: support of WMO/WWRP and contribution of THORPEX-Africa

• Design of optimum network : monitoring and data impact studies in the framework of AMMA to be extended to whole Africa: in the agenda of THORPEX International WG on Data Assimilation

• Predictability studies, particularly for intra-seasonal timescales • Integration of climate/meteorological information into decision and policy

making• Network (research, operational, users communities, institutional)• Communication strategies

AMMA-THORPEX collaboration: some areas of actual and potential collaboration

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Next steps

WORKSHOP ON:

HIGH-IMPACT WEATHER PREDICTABILITY, AN INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR AFRICA and

AFRICAN FORECASTERS' HANDBOOK

5 - 8 October 2009, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics

Co-sponsored by the WMO / WWRP- THORPEX, ACMAD, FSP-RIPIECSA and GEO

Concluding remarks• For all the projects, international co-operation is

essential

• The support of major NWP centres, research institutes and organisations is invited and will be necessary to achieve THORPEX –Africa goals

• The approach will be to build activities on existing programmes (e.g. AMMA) and make linkages to other directly relevant projects (e.g. UCAR Africa Initiative, ClimDev-Africa, ICSU-ROA/Natural hazards and disasters programme)