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Previous studies agree on an impact of the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV) on total seasonal rainfall amounts over the Sahel. However, whether and how AMV affects the distribution of rainfall or the timing of the West African Monsoon is not well known. Here we analyze daily rainfall outputs from atmosphere-ocean coupled models. Models show dry biases over the Sahel, where the mean intensity is consistently smaller than observations, and wet biases over the Guinea Coast, where they simulate too many rainy days. In addition, most models underestimate the average length of the rainy season over the Sahel, some due to a too late monsoon onset and others due to a too early cessation. In response to a persistent positive AMV pattern imposed in the Atlantic, following a protocol largely consistent with the one proposed by the Component C of the Decadal Climate Prediction Project (DCPP-C), models show an enhancement in total summer rainfall over West African land mass, including the Sahel. Both the number of wet days and the intensity of daily rainfall events are enhanced over the Sahel. The former explains most of the changes in seasonal rainfall in the northern fringe, while the latter is more relevant in the southern region, where higher rainfall anomalies occur. This dominance is connected to the changes in the number of days per type of event: the frequency of both moderate and heavy events increases over the Sahel’s northern fringe. Conversely, over the southern limit, it is mostly the frequency of heavy events which is enhanced, affecting the mean rainfall intensity there. Extreme rainfall events are also enhanced over the whole Sahel in response to a positive phase of the AMV. Models with stronger negative biases in rainfall amounts tend to show weaker changes in response to AMV, suggesting systematic biases could affect the simulated responses. The monsoon onset over the Sahel shows no clear response to AMV, while the demise tends to be delayed and the overall length of the monsoon season enhanced between 2 and 5 days with the positive AMV pattern. The effect of AMV on the seasonality of the monsoon is more consistent to the West of 10º W, with all models showing a statistically significant earlier onset, later demise and enhanced monsoon season with the positive phase of the AMV. Our results suggest a potential for the decadal prediction of changes in the intraseasonal characteristics of rainfall over the Sahel, including the occurrence of extreme events.

Future changes in Sahel precipitation are uncertain because of large differences between projections of various climate models. We assess the effect of climate change on Sahel precipitation in summer and for the end of the 21st century. We show that uncertainty in Sahel precipitation is associated with uncertainty at simulating future changes in surface air temperature over the northern Hemisphere. We point out the Atlantic Ocean and Euro-Mediterranean surface air temperature as drivers of the Sahel precipitation change uncertainty. We use a storyline approach, a statistical method, to construct scenarios of changes in Sahel precipitation, whose differences only depend on future changes in Atlantic Ocean and Euro-Mediterranean surface air temperature. We show that uncertainty in changes in Atlantic Ocean and Euro-Mediterranean surface air temperature explains up to 50% of Sahel precipitation change uncertainty. The approach also allows selecting models to better understand uncertainty in Sahel precipitation change, focusing on the mechanisms at play. We suggest that reducing uncertainty in the future warming of the North Atlantic and the Euro-Mediterranean areas would then allow reducing uncertainty in future changes in Sahel precipitation.

Future changes in Sahel precipitation are uncertain because of large differences among projections from various models. In order to explore this uncertainty, we use a storyline approach which seeks to identify alternative plausible evolutions of Sahel precipitation and their driving factors. By analysing projections from the CMIP6 climate models, we show that changes in North Atlantic and in Euro-Mediterranean temperatures explain up to 50% of the central Sahel precipitation change uncertainty. We then construct several storylines of Sahel precipitation change based on future plausible changes in North Atlantic and Euro-Mediterranean temperatures. In one storyline, an amplified warming of both the North Atlantic and the Euro-Mediterranean areas promotes a northward shift of the West African monsoon, increasing precipitation over the central Sahel, while, in another storyline, a moderate warming in both regions is associated with a small change in precipitation over the central Sahel and a decrease in precipitation over the western Sahel, at the end of the 21st century. These results indicate that reducing uncertainty in future changes in Sahel precipitation could be achieved by reducing uncertainty in the future warming of the North Atlantic and the Euro-Mediterranean areas.

North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) underwent pronounced multidecadal variability during the twentieth and early twenty-first century. We examine the impacts of this Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV), also referred to as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), on climate in an ensemble of five coupled climate models at both low and high spatial resolution. We use a SST nudging scheme specified by the Coupled Model Intercomparision Project’s Decadal Climate Prediction Project Component C (CMIP6 DCPP-C) to impose a persistent positive/negative phase of the AMV in the North Atlantic in coupled model simulations; SSTs are free to evolve outside this region. The large-scale seasonal mean response to the positive AMV involves widespread warming over Eurasia and the Americas, with a pattern of cooling over the Pacific Ocean similar to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), together with a northward displacement of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ). The accompanying changes in global atmospheric circulation lead to widespread changes in precipitation. We use Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to demonstrate that this large-scale climate response is accompanied by significant differences between models in how they respond to the common AMV forcing, particularly in the tropics. These differences may arise from variations in North Atlantic air-sea heat fluxes between models despite a common North Atlantic SST forcing pattern. We cannot detect a widespread effect of increased model horizontal resolution in this climate response, with the exception of the ITCZ, which shifts further northwards in the positive phase of the AMV in the higher resolution configurations. The Authors would like to acknowledge the use of the UKRI funded JASMIN data analysis facility which was essential to the analysis and storage of PRIMAVERA project data. Ongoing curation of project data has been supported by the IS-ENES3 project that has received funding from the European Union’ Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 824084. Authors DH, PM, JS, PD, YRR, CDR acknowledge funding from the PRIMAVERA project (www.primavera-h2020.eu), funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under Grant Agreement 641727. PM was supported by U.K.–China Research and Innovation Partnership Fund through the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP) China as part of the Newton Fund. PD thanks ECMWF for providing computing time in the framework of the special projects SPITDAVI. YRR was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Inovation Programme in the framework of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant INADEC (Grant Agreement 80015400). Author DH would like to thank Nick Klingaman and Linda Hirons for their extensive help with the MetUM-GOML model. This article was written with support (DH) from National Environmental Research Council (NERC) national capability grant for the North Atlantic Climate System: Integrated study (ACSIS) program (Grants NE/N018001/1, NE/N018044/1, NE/N018028/1, and NE/N018052/1). MMR is supported by a Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion research contract of MICINN (Spain). The authors wish to acknowledge use of the Ferret program for analysis and graphics in this paper. Ferret is a product of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. (Information is available at http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/) and also the CF-python analysis package http://ncas-cms.github.io/cf-python/. Assembly of MetUM-GOML and development of MC-KPP was supported by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and led by Dr. Nicholas Klingaman. The authors would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers whose comments contributed to a much improved final manuscript. Peer Reviewed "Article signat per 17 autors/es: Daniel L. R. Hodson, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Christophe Cassou, Paolo Davini, Nicholas P. Klingaman, Katja Lohmann, Jorge Lopez-Parages, Marta Martín-Rey, Marie-Pierre Moine, Paul-Arthur Monerie, Dian A. Putrasahan, Christopher D. Roberts, Jon Robson, Yohan Ruprich-Robert, Emilia Sanchez-Gomez, Jon Seddon & Retish Senan"

Climate model simulations that restore SSTs in the North Atlantic have been used to explore the climate impacts of Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV). However, despite simulations and observations exhibiting similar North Atlantic SST anomalies, experiments with active SST-restoring in the Tropical North Atlantic exhibit strong positive surface heat-fluxes out of the ocean with warm SST anomalies, which is not replicated in other simulations or observations. The upward surface heat-fluxes that are systematically driven by the active SST-restoring in the Tropical North Atlantic are found to be crucial for generating a strong local precipitation response and the associated remote impact on the Pacific Walker circulation; these are both absent in other simulations. The results of this study strongly suggest that experiments employing SST-restoring (or prescribed SSTs) in the Tropical North Atlantic exaggerate the influence of the Atlantic on patterns of global climate anomalies and its role in recent multidecadal SST trends. COR was supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. MP was funded by the EUCP project (Horizon 2020; Grant Agreement 776613). JR was funded by NERC via the ACSIS program (NE/N018001/1) and via the WISHBONE project (NE/T013516/1). PAM was funded by the EMERGENCE project under the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC Grant NE/S004890/1) The project that gave rise to these results included YRR and received the support of a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434) and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 847648 (fellowship code LCF/BQ/PR21/11840016).

Northern Hemisphere land monsoon (NHLM) precipitation exhibits multidecadal variability, decreasing over the second half of the twentieth century and increasing after the 1980s. We use a novel combination of CMIP6 simulations and several large ensembles to assess the relative roles of drivers of monsoon precipitation trends, analyzing the effects of anthropogenic aerosol (AA), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and natural forcing. We decomposed summer global monsoon precipitation anomalies into dynamic and thermodynamic terms to assess the drivers of precipitation trends. We show that the drying trends are likely to be mainly due to increased AA emissions, which cause shifts of the atmospheric circulation and a decrease in moisture advection. Increases in GHG emissions cause monsoon precipitation to increase due to strengthened moisture advection. The uncertainty in summer monsoon precipitation trends is explored using three initial-condition large ensembles. AA emissions have strong controls on monsoon precipitation trends, exceeding the effects of internal climate variability. However, uncertainties in the effects of external forcings on monsoon precipitation are high for specific periods and monsoon domains, resulting from differences in how models simulate shifts in atmospheric circulation. The effect of AA emissions is uncertain over the northern African monsoon domain due to differences among climate models in simulating the effects of AA emissions on net shortwave radiation over the North Atlantic Ocean.

Recently it has been shown that initialised climate predictions capture the decadal variability of the winter NAO with high skill. However, the signal from models is often hidden among their large internal variability, which results in a low signal-to-noise ratio. In this study, we quantify the skill of the North Atlantic eddy-driven jet’s location and intensity, both in summer and winter. We focus on multi-model decadal predictions made for CMIP6. Overall, we find that models feature a higher skill (as featured by the Anomaly Correlation Coefficient) in predicting the intensity of the jet than its location. For years 2-9, the high winter NAO skill is largely associated with skilful prediction of the jet speed. However, skill in summer is considerably worse than in winter, with models consistently failing to capture the observed southward shift of the Jet between the 1970s and 2010s. Finally, we also show that the skill for the winter NAO is sensitive to the period over which it is computed, and skill drops considerably when evaluating up to the present day, as models fail to capture the observed northern shift and strengthening of the winter eddy-driven jet over the period 2005-2020, as well as the positive trend in the winter NAO.

An increase in European and North American anthropogenic aerosol emissions in the 1970s and 1980s led to a decrease in Sahel precipitation during the same time. Although significant, the effect of anthropogenic aerosols on Sahel precipitation is uncertain across a set of CMIP6 single-forcing simulations. However, understanding the cause of this uncertainty in simulated effects of anthropogenic aerosols on West African precipitation in CMIP6 models is difficult, largely due to the relatively small number of large-ensembles with single-forcing simulations. Here, we use a single-model ensemble that spans much of the range in anthropogenic aerosol effective radiative forcing from the CMIP5 and CMIP6 multi-model ensembles. The simulations are performed with HadGEM3-GC3.1 and the different forcings are achieved by scaling emissions in anthropogenic aerosols. We show that changes in anthropogenic aerosols have strong effects on the drivers of the West African monsoon, and on precipitation extremes. Further, we show that the magnitude and even the occurrence of the West African drought (1970s-1980s) strongly depend on the simulated effective anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing in the model simulations. Our results show that a better understanding of the effects of anthropogenic aerosols on climate is necessary to improve predictions of decadal trends in Sahel precipitation.

We assess the effects of the North Atlantic Ocean Sea Surface Temperature (NASST) on North East Asian (NEA) surface temperature. We use a set of sensitivity experiments, performed with MetUM-GOML2, an atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a multi-level ocean mixed layer model, to mimic warming and cooling over the North Atlantic Ocean. Results show that a warming of the NASST is associated with a significant warming over NEA. Two mechanisms are pointed out to explain the NASST—North East Asia surface temperature relationship. First, the warming of the NASST is associated with a modulation of the northern hemisphere circulation, due to the propagation of a Rossby wave (i.e. the circumglobal teleconnection). The change in the atmosphere circulation is associated with advections of heat from the Pacific Ocean to NEA and with an increase in net surface shortwave radiation over NEA, both acting to increase NEA surface temperature. Second, the warming of the NASST is associated with a cooling (warming) over the eastern (western) Pacific Ocean, which modulates the circulation over the western Pacific Ocean and NEA. Additional simulations, in which Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures are kept constant, show that the modulation of the circumglobal teleconnection is key to explaining impacts of the NASST on NEA surface temperature.

Quantifying signals and uncertainties in climate models is essential for the detection, attribution, prediction and projection of climate change1,2,3. Although inter-model agreement is high for large-scale temperature signals, dynamical changes in atmospheric circulation are very uncertain4. This leads to low confidence in regional projections, especially for precipitation, over the coming decades5,6. The chaotic nature of the climate system7,8,9 may also mean that signal uncertainties are largely irreducible. However, climate projections are difficult to verify until further observations become available. Here we assess retrospective climate model predictions of the past six decades and show that decadal variations in North Atlantic winter climate are highly predictable, despite a lack of agreement between individual model simulations and the poor predictive ability of raw model outputs. Crucially, current models underestimate the predictable signal (the predictable fraction of the total variability) of the North Atlantic Oscillation (the leading mode of variability in North Atlantic atmospheric circulation) by an order of magnitude. Consequently, compared to perfect models, 100 times as many ensemble members are needed in current models to extract this signal, and its effects on the climate are underestimated relative to other factors. To address these limitations, we implement a two-stage post-processing technique. We first adjust the variance of the ensemble-mean North Atlantic Oscillation forecast to match the observed variance of the predictable signal. We then select and use only the ensemble members with a North Atlantic Oscillation sufficiently close to the variance-adjusted ensemble-mean forecast North Atlantic Oscillation. This approach greatly improves decadal predictions of winter climate for Europe and eastern North America. Predictions of Atlantic multidecadal variability are also improved, suggesting that the North Atlantic Oscillation is not driven solely by Atlantic multidecadal variability. Our results highlight the need to understand why the signal-to-noise ratio is too small in current climate models10, and the extent to which correcting this model error would reduce uncertainties in regional climate change projections on timescales beyond a decade. DMS, AAS, NJD, LH and RE were supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by BEIS and Defra and by the European Commission Horizon 2020 EUCP project (GA 776613). FJDR, LPC, SW and RB also acknowledge the support from the EUCP project (GA 776613) and from the Ministerio de Econom´ıa y Competitividad (MINECO) as part of the CLINSA project (Grant No. CGL2017-85791-R). SW received funding from the innovation programme under the Marie Sk´lodowska-Curie grant agreement H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2016-754433 and PO from the Ramon y Cajal senior tenure programme of MINECO. The EC-Earth simulations were performed on Marenostrum 4 (hosted by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain) using Auto-Submit through computing hours provided by PRACE.WAM, HP, KMand KP were supported by the German FederalMinistry for Education and Research (BMBF) project MiKlip (grant 01LP1519A). NK, IB, FC and YW were supported by the Norwegian Research Council projects SFE (grant 270733) the Nordic Center of excellent ARCPATH (grant 76654) and the Trond Mohn Foundation, under the project number : BFS2018TMT01 and received grants for computer time from the Norwegian Program for supercomputing (NOTUR2, NN9039K) and storage grants (NORSTORE, NS9039K). JM, LFB and DS are supported by Blue-Action (European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, Grant Number: 727852) and EUCP (European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no 776613) projects. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a major facility sponsored by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) under Cooperative Agreement No. 1852977. NCAR contribution was partially supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Program Office under Climate Variability and Predictability Program Grant NA13OAR4310138 and by the US NSF Collaborative Research EaSM2 Grant OCE-1243015.

The impact of climate change on Sahel precipitation suffers from large uncertainties and is strongly model-dependent. In this study, we analyse sources of inter-model spread in Sahel precipitation change by decomposing precipitation into its dynamic and thermodynamic terms, using a large set of climate model simulations. Results highlight that model uncertainty is mostly related to the response of the atmospheric circulation to climate change (dynamic changes), while thermodynamic changes are less uncertain among climate models. Uncertainties arise mainly because the models simulate different shifts in atmospheric circulation over West Africa in a warmer climate. We linked the changes in atmospheric circulation to the changes in Sea Surface Temperature, emphasising that the Northern hemispheric temperature gradient is primary to explain uncertainties in Sahel precipitation change. Sources of Sahel precipitation uncertainties are shown to be the same in the new generation of climate models (CMIP6) as in the previous generation of models (CMIP5).

11 pages, 6 figures, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-021-00188-5.-- Data availability; The data generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author YRR on reasonable request, Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV) has been linked to the observed slowdown of global warming over 1998–2012 through its impact on the tropical Pacific. Given the global importance of tropical Pacific variability, better understanding this Atlantic–Pacific teleconnection is key for improving climate predictions, but the robustness and strength of this link are uncertain. Analyzing a multi-model set of sensitivity experiments, we find that models differ by a factor of 10 in simulating the amplitude of the Equatorial Pacific cooling response to observed AMV warming. The inter-model spread is mainly driven by different amounts of moist static energy injection from the tropical Atlantic surface into the upper troposphere. We reduce this inter-model uncertainty by analytically correcting models for their mean precipitation biases and we quantify that, following an observed 0.26 °C AMV warming, the equatorial Pacific cools by 0.11 °C with an inter-model standard deviation of 0.03 °C, Y.R.-R. was founded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program in the framework of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant INADEC (Grant agreement 800154). E.M.-C. acknowledges funding from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 projects PRIMAVERA (Grant Agreement 641727). X.L. has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2016-754433. A.B. and D.N. acknowledge funding from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 project EUCP (Grant agreement 776613). F.C. and G.D. were supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Collaborative Research EaSM2 Grant OCE-1243015 to NCAR and by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Program Office under the Climate Variability and Predictability Program Grant NA13OAR4310138. NCAR is a major facility sponsored by the US NSF under Cooperative Agreement 1852977. [...] R.E., N.D., L.H., and D.S. were supported by the Met Office Hadley Center 522 Climate Program funded by BEIS and Defra and by the European Commission Horizon 2020 EUCP 523 project (GA 776613). J.L.-P. was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program in the framework of the PRIMAVERA project (Grant Agreement 641727). J.R. and D.H. were funded by NERC via NCAS and the ACSIS project (NE/N018001/1), and JR was also funded by the NERC SMURPHS project (NE/N006054/1). M.M.-R. was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program in the framework of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant FESTIVAL (Grant agreement 797236). E.T. has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 748750 (SPFireSD project), With the funding support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI)

The energy demand for heating and cooling buildings is changing with global warming. Using proxies of climate-driven energy demand based on the heating and cooling Degree-Days methodology applied to thirty global climate model simulations, we show that, over all continental areas, the climate-driven energy demand trends for heating and cooling were weak, changing by less than 10% from 1950 to 1990, but become stronger from 1990 to 2030, changing by more than 10%. With the multi-model mean, the increasing trends in cooling energy demand are more pronounced than the decreasing trends in heating. The changes in cooling, however, are highly variable depending on individual simulations, ranging from a few to several hundred percent in most of the densely populated mid-latitude areas. This work presents an example of the challenges that accompany future energy demand quantification as a result of the uncertainty in the projected climate., The energy demand for heating and cooling buildings is changing with global warming. Here the authors show that trends in cooling energy demands are increasing, although the magnitude is extremely uncertain, which highlights challenges for future energy demand quantification.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) shows a large diversity of events, whose modulation by climate variability and change, and their representation in climate models, limit our ability to predict their impact on ecosystems and human livelihood. Here, we introduce a new framework to analysze probabilistic changes in event-location and -intensity, which overcomes existing limitations in studying ENSO diversity. We find robust decadal variations in event intensities and locations in century-long observational datasets, which are associated with perturbations in equatorial wind-stress and thermocline depth, as well as extra-tropical anomalies in the North and South Pacific. A large fraction of CMIP5 and CMIP6 models appear capable of simulating such decadal variability in ENSO diversity, and the associated large-scale patterns. Projections of ENSO diversity in future climate change scenarios strongly depend on the magnitude of decadal variations, and the ability of climate models to reproduce them realistically over the 21st century.

We assess the effect of increasing horizontal resolution on simulated precipitation over South America in a climate model. We use atmosphere-only simulations, performed with HadGEM3-GC31 at three horizontal resolutions: N96 (∼130 km; 1.88∘×1.25∘), N216 (∼60 km; 0.83∘×0.56∘), and N512 (∼25 km; 0.35∘×0.23∘). We show that all simulations have systematic biases in annual mean and seasonal mean precipitation over South America (e.g. too wet over the Amazon and too dry in the northeast). Increasing horizontal resolution improves simulated precipitation over the Andes and northeast Brazil. Over the Andes, improvements from horizontal resolution continue to ∼25 km, while over northeast Brazil, there are no improvements beyond ∼60 km resolution. These changes are primarily related to changes in atmospheric dynamics and moisture flux convergence. Over the Amazon Basin, precipitation variability increases at higher resolution. We show that some spatial and temporal features of daily South American precipitation are improved at high resolution, including the intensity spectra of rainfall. Spatial scales of daily precipitation features are also better simulated, suggesting that higher resolution may improve the representation of South American mesoscale convective systems.

The main focus of this study is the zonal contrast of the Sahel precipitation shown in the CMIP5 climate projections: precipitation decreases over the western Sahel (i.e., Senegal and western Mali) and increases over the central Sahel (i.e., eastern Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger). This zonal contrast in future precipitation change is a robust model response to climate change but suffers from a lack of an explanation. To this aim, we study the impact of current and future climate change on Sahel precipitation by using the Large Ensemble of the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1). In CESM1, global warming leads to a strengthening of the zonal contrast, as shown by the difference between the 2060–2099 period (under a high emission scenario) and the 1960–1999 period (under the historical forcing). The zonal contrast is associated with dynamic shifts in the atmospheric circulation. We show that, in absence of a forced response, that is, when only accounting for internal climate variability, the zonal contrast is associated with the Pacific and the tropical Atlantic oceans variability. However, future patterns in sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies are not necessary to explaining the projected strengthening of the zonal contrast. The mechanisms underlying the simulated changes are elucidated by analysing a set of CMIP5 idealised simulations. We show the increase in precipitation over the central Sahel to be mostly associated with the surface warming over northern Africa, which favour the displacement of the monsoon cell northwards. Over the western Sahel, the decrease in Sahel precipitation is associated with a southward shift of the monsoon circulation, and is mostly due to the warming of the SST. These two mechanisms allow explaining the zonal contrast in precipitation change.

It is now widely recognized that El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurs in more than one form, e.g. eastern and central Pacific ENSO. Given that these various ENSO flavours may contribute to climate variability and trends in different ways, this study presents a framework that treats ENSO as a continuum to examine its impact on precipitation, and to evaluate the performance of the last two generations of global climate models (GCMs): CMIP5 and CMIP6.Uncertainties in the location and intensity of observed El Nino and La Nina events are assessed in various observational and satellite-derived products (ERSSTv5, COBESSTv2, HadSST1 and OISSTv2). The probability distributions of El Nino and La Nina event locations, and intensities, slightly differ from one observational data set to another. For instance, La Nina events are more intense and more likely to occur in the central Pacific using COBESSTv2. All these products also depict consistent decadal variations in the location and intensity of ENSO events: i) central Pacific ENSO events were more likely in the 1940/50s and from the 1980s; ii) eastern Pacific ENSO events were more likely in the 1910/20s and 1960/70s; iii) La Nina events have become more intense during the 20th and early 21st centuries.These fluctuations in ENSO location and intensity are found to impact precipitation consistently across diverse global precipitation products (CRUv4.03, GPCCv8 and UDELv5.01). Over southern Africa, for instance, more intense eastern (central) Pacific El Nino events are found to favour drought conditions over northern (southern) regions during austral summer. By contrast, over the same regions, more intense La Nina events favours wet conditions, while the location of these events has little effect on precipitation. Over West Africa, ENSO locations favour a zonal (E-W) rainfall gradient in precipitation during boreal summer, while changes in ENSO intensity modulate the strength of the meridional (N-S) rainfall gradient.Using both historical and pi-Control runs, we demonstrate that most CMIP5 and CMIP6 models favour either eastern or central Pacific ENSO events, but very few models are able to capture the full observed ENSO continuum. Regarding ENSO impacts on worldwide precipitation, contrasted results appear in most models.

20 pages; International audience; We assess the ability of the DePreSys3 prediction system to predict austral summer precipitation (DJF) over southern Africa, defined as the African continent south of 15°S. DePresys3 is a high resolution prediction system (at a horizontal resolution of ~ 60 km in the atmosphere in mid-latitudes and of the quarter degree in the Ocean) and spans the long period 1959–2016. We find skill in predicting interannual precipitation variability, relative to a long-term trend; the anomaly correlation skill score over southern Africa is greater than 0.45 for the first summer (i.e. lead month 2–4), and 0.37 over Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia for the second summer (i.e. lead month 14–16). The skill is related to the successful prediction of the El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the successful simulation of ENSO teleconnections to southern Africa. However, overall skill is sensitive to the inclusion of strong La-Nina events and also appears to change with forecast epoch. For example, the skill in predicting precipitation over Mozambique is significantly larger for the first summer in the 1990–2016 period, compared to the 1959–1985 period. The difference in skill in predicting interannual precipitation variability over southern Africa in different epochs is consistent with a change in the strength of the observed teleconnections of ENSO. After 1990, and consistent with the increased skill, the observed impact of ENSO appears to strengthen over west Mozambique, in association with changes in ENSO related atmospheric convergence anomalies. However, these apparent changes in teleconnections are not captured by the ensemble-mean predictions using DePreSys3. The changes in the ENSO teleconnection are consistent with a warming over the Indian Ocean and modulation of ENSO properties between the different epochs, but may also be associated with unpredictable atmospheric variability.

We assess skill of the Met Office’s DePreSys3 prediction system at forecasting summer global monsoon precipitation at the seasonal time scale (2-5 month forecast period). DePreSys3 has significant skill at predicting summer monsoon precipitation (r=0.68), but the skill varies by region and is higher in the northern (r=0.68) rather than in the southern hemisphere (r=0.44). To understand the sources of precipitation forecast skill, we decompose the precipitation into several dynamic and thermodynamic components and assess the skill in predicting each. While dynamical changes of the atmospheric circulation primarily contribute to global monsoon variability, skill at predicting shifts in the atmospheric circulation is relatively low. This lower skill partly relates to DePreSys3’s limited ability to accurately simulate changes in atmospheric circulation patterns in response to sea surface temperature forcing. Skill at predicting the thermodynamic component of precipitation is generally higher than for the dynamic component, but thermodynamic anomalies only contribute a small proportion of the total precipitation variability. Finally, we show that the use of a large ensemble improves skill for predicting monsoon precipitation, but skill does not increase beyond 20 members.

We assess the ability of the DePreSys3 prediction\ud system to predict the summer (JJAS) surface-air temperature over North East Asia. DePreSys3 is based on a\ud high resolution ocean–atmosphere coupled climate prediction system (~ 60 km in the atmosphere and ~ 25 km in the ocean), which is full-field initialized from 1960 to 2014 (26 start-dates). We find skill in predicting surface-air temperature, relative to a long-term trend, for 1 and 2–5 year leadtimes over North East Asia, the North Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Europe. DePreSys3 also reproduces the interdecadal evolution of surface-air temperature over the North Atlantic subpolar gyre and North East Asia for both lead times, along with the strong warming that occurred in the mid-1990s over\ud both areas. Composite analysis reveals that the skill at capturing interdecadal changes in North East Asia is associated with the propagation of an atmospheric Rossby wave, which follows the subtropical jet and modulates surface-air temperature from Europe to Eastern Asia. We hypothesise that this ‘circumglobal teleconnection’ pattern is excited over the Atlantic Ocean and is related to Atlantic multi-decadal variability and the associated changes in precipitation over the Sahel and the subtropical Atlantic Ocean. This mechanism is robust for the 2–5 year lead-time. For the 1 year lead-time the Pacific Ocean also plays an important role in leading to skill in predicting SAT over Northeast Asia. Increased temperatures and precipitation over the western Pacific Ocean was found to be associated with a Pacific-Japan like-pattern, which can affect East Asia’s climate.

The ability of a high-resolution coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (with a horizontal resolution of a quarter of a degree in the ocean and of about 0.5° in the atmosphere) to predict the annual means of temperature, precipitation, sea-ice volume and extent is assessed based on initialized hindcasts over the 1993–2009 period. Significant skill in predicting sea surface temperatures is obtained, especially over the North Atlantic, the tropical Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. The Sea Ice Extent and volume are also reasonably predicted in winter (March) and summer (September). The model skill is mainly due to the external forcing associated with well-mixed greenhouse gases. A decrease in the global warming rate associated with a negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is simulated by the model over a suite of 10-year periods when initialized from starting dates between 1999 and 2003. The model ability to predict regional change is investigated by focusing on the mid-90’s Atlantic Ocean subpolar gyre warming. The model simulates the North Atlantic warming associated with a meridional heat transport increase, a strengthening of the North Atlantic current and a deepening of the mixed layer over the Labrador Sea. The atmosphere plays a role in the warming through a modulation of the North Atlantic Oscillation: a negative sea level pressure anomaly, located south of the subpolar gyre is associated with a wind speed decrease over the subpolar gyre. This leads to a reduced oceanic heat-loss and favors a northward displacement of anomalously warm and salty subtropical water that both concur to the subpolar gyre warming. We finally conclude that the subpolar gyre warming is mainly triggered by ocean dynamics with a possible contribution of atmospheric circulation favoring its persistence.

We assess the effect of the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV) on the global monsoon using idealized simulations. Warm AMV phases are associated with a significant strengthening of monsoon precipitation over Northern Africa and India, and anomalously weak monsoon precipitation over South America. Changes in monsoon precipitation are mediated by a change in atmospheric dynamics, primarily associated with a shift in the circulation related to both an enhanced interhemispheric thermal contrast and the remote impact of AMV on the Pacific Ocean, through changes in the Walker circulation. In contrast, the thermodynamic changes are less important. Further experiments show that the impact of AMV is largely due to the tropical component of the sea surface temperature anomalies. However, the extratropical Atlantic also plays a role, especially for northern Africa. Finally, we show that the effect of AMV on monsoons is not linearly related to the magnitude of warming.

The impact of climate change on Sahel precipitation is uncertain and has to be widely documented. Recently, it has been shown that Arctic sea ice loss leverages the global warming effects worldwide, suggesting a potential impact of Arctic sea ice decline on tropical regions. However, defining the specific roles of increasing greenhouse gases (GHG) concentration and declining Arctic sea ice extent on Sahel climate is not straightforward since the former impacts the latter. We avoid this dependency by analysing idealized experiments performed with the CNRM-CM5 coupled model. Results show that the increase in GHG concentration explains most of the Sahel precipitation change. We found that the impact due to Arctic sea ice loss depends on the level of atmospheric GHG concentration. When the GHG concentration is relatively low (values representative of 1980s), then the impact is moderate over the Sahel. However, when the concentration in GHG is levelled up, then Arctic sea ice loss leads to increased Sahel precipitation. In this particular case the ocean-land meridional gradient of temperature strengthens, allowing a more intense monsoon circulation. We linked the non-linearity of Arctic sea ice decline impact with differences in temperature and sea level pressure changes over the North Atlantic Ocean. We argue that the impact of the Arctic sea ice loss will become more relevant with time, in the context of climate change.

20 pages; International audience; The future evolution of the West African Monsoon is studied by analyzing 32 CMIP5 models under the rcp8.5 emission scenario. A hierarchical clustering method based on the simulated pattern of precipitation changes is used to classify the models. Four groups, which do not agree on the simple sign of future Sahel precipitation change, are obtained. We find that the inter-group differences are mainly associated with the large spread in (1) temperature increase over the Sahara and North Atlantic and in (2) the strengthening of low and mid-level winds. A wetter Sahel is associated with a strong increase in temperature over the Sahara (>6 °C), a northward shift of the monsoon system and a weakening of the African Easterly jet. A dryer Sahel is associated with subsidence anomalies, a strengthening of the 600 hPa wind speed, and a weaker warming over the Northern Hemisphere. Moreover, the western (central) Sahel is projected to become dryer (wetter) during the first months (last months) of the rainy season in a majority of models. We propose several methods to select a sub-sample of models that captures both the ensemble mean pattern and/or the spread of precipitation changes from the full ensemble. This methodology is useful in all the situations for which it is not possible to deal with a large ensemble of models, and in particular most impact studies. We show that no relationship exists between the climatological mean biases in precipitation and temperature and the future changes in the monsoon intensity. This indicates that the mean bias is therefore not a reliable metric for the model selection. For this reason, we propose several methodologies, based on the projected precipitation changes: The “diversity” method, which consists in the selection of one model from each group is the most appropriate to capture the spread in precipitation change. The “pattern selection” method, which consists in the selection of models in a single group allows to select models for the study of a specific pattern of precipitation change, for example the one that is the most representative of the full ensemble.

Thirteen CMIP5 models are used to analyse changes in climate over the West African monsoon region between the near future (2031–2070 under the RCP4.5 emission scenario), and a control period (1960–1999 under the historical emission scenario), with a focus on the late rainy season. The monsoon circulation is projected to strengthen and to shift northward leading to more rainfall during the Sahelian season. The results show an increase of the Rainfall amounts in September–October and a delay in the monsoon withdrawal. The increased moisture that fuels the rainfall anomalies is associated with an increase in moisture flux convergence and with local moisture recycling. The moisture transport dominates the water budget change in September while the local recycling is prominent in October. The delay in monsoon withdrawal, although expected from the increase in rainfall in September–October, is not strongly correlated with the size of the monthly anomalies.

Climate prediction skill on the interannual timescale, which sits between that of seasonal and decadal, is investigated using large ensembles from the Met Office and CESM initialised coupled prediction systems. A key goal is to determine what can be skillfully predicted about the coming year when combining these two ensembles together. Annual surface temperature predictions show good skill at both global and regional scales, but skill diminishes when the trend associated with global warming is removed. Skill for the extended boreal summer (months 7-11) and winter (months 12-16) seasons are examined, focusing on circulation and rainfall predictions. Skill in predicting rainfall in tropical monsoon regions is found to be significant for the majority of regions examined. Skill increases for all regions when active ENSO seasons are forecast. There is some regional skill for predicting extratropical circulation, but predictive signals appear to be spuriously weak.

7 pages; International audience; Future changes in the structure of daily rainfall, especially the number of rainy days and the intensity of extreme events, are likely to induce major impacts on rain-fed agriculture in the tropics. In Africa this issue is of primary importance, but the agreement between climate models to simulate such descriptors of rainfall is generally poor. Here, we show that the climate models used for the fifth assessment report of IPCC simulate a marked decrease in the number of rainy days, together with a strong increase in the rainfall amounts during the 1% wettest days, by the end of the 21st century over Southern Africa. These combined changes lead to an apparent stability of seasonal totals, but are likely to alter the quality of the rainy season. These evolutions are due to the superposition of slowly-changing moisture fluxes, mainly supported by increased hygrometric capacity associated with global warming, and unchanged short-term atmospheric configurations in which extreme events are embedded. This could cause enhanced floods or droughts, stronger soil erosion and nutriment loss, questioning the sustainability of food security for the 300 million people currently living in Africa south of the Equator.

This study documents the time evolution of air temperature and heat waves occurrences over Northern Africa for the period 1979-2011. A significant warming (1°-3°C), appearing by the mid-1960s over Sahara and Sahel, is associated with higher/lesser frequency of warm/cold temperatures, as with longer duration and higher occurrences of heat waves. Heat waves episodes of at least 4 day duration have been examined after removing the long-term evolution. These episodes are associated with specific anomalies: (i) in spring, positive low-level temperature anomalies over the Sahel and Sahara; low and midlevel cyclonic rotation over Morocco associated with a Rossby wave pattern, lessening the Harmattan; more/less atmospheric moisture westward/eastward to 0°; upward/downward anomalies above the western/eastern regions associated with the Rossby wave pattern; (ii) in summer, a similar but weaker positive low-level temperature anomaly (up to 3°C); less moisture westward to 10°W, a cyclonic anomaly in central Sahel favoring the monsoon eastward to 0° and a midlevel anticyclonic anomaly over the Western Sahara, increasing southward the flux divergence associated with the African Easterly Jet. In March-May, two to three heat waves propagate eastward. They are preceded by an abnormal warm cell over Libya and southwesterlies over the West Sahara. A large trough stands over North Atlantic while midtropospheric subsidence and anticyclonic rotation reinforce over the continent, then migrates toward the Arabian peninsula in breaking up. These signals are spatially coherent and might suggest the role of short Rossby waves with an eastward group velocity and a baroclinic mode, possibly associated with jet stream deformation.

Future climate changes in African regions are model-dependent and there is no consensus regarding Sahelian rainfall by the end of this century. Using 12 atmosphere-ocean global climate models of the third Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) we propose a multi-model (MM) analysis contrasting the 1960–1999 period (20c3m integration) and the 2031–2070 period (A1B emission scenario). The analyses are based on MM response but also on the ‘one model-one vote’ concept to give the same weight to each model. The results show robust signals in the rainfall response, i.e., increasing (decreasing) amounts in central (western) Sahel associated with specific changes in atmospheric dynamics. The rainfall excesses expected in central Sahel are mainly linked to an enhancement of the northern Hadley-type cell and probably to its northward shift. At low-levels increasing temperature and evaporation strengthen the monsoon flux. Rainfall deficits predicted westward are due to a reinforcement of the African Easterly Jet and to anomalies in the zonal circulation between the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans, favouring air subsidence and moisture export outside the region. The weakening of the meridional circulation is also able to prevent rainfall amounts in the western part of the Sahel. More generally, these analyses show that in future works the Sahel region must not be considered as one consistent region but as two separate areas, both sides of the Greenwich meridian. The authors propose to consider this feature in the next Fifth Assessment cycle (AR5) in order to better understand the impacts of the climate change on West Africa. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society

[1] The accuracy of African Monsoon (AM) simulations together with expected future changes are presented using eight available CMIP5/AR5 AOGCMs under the RCP4.5 emission scenario and eight CMIP3/AR4 AOGCMs under the A1b scenario, with a multimodel approach and the “one model one vote” concept. The results refer to the ‘present’ period (1960–1999) and to a ‘future horizon’ (2031–2070), and are discussed in terms of monsoon dynamics and climate change. Overall the new simulations seem more realistic. They exhibit more accurate rainfall patterns, although some biases reported in CMIP3 models remain. The future changes show an inverse tendency regarding rainfall amounts with less (more) rainfall expected over the western (central-eastern) Sahel. The deficits are associated with increasing air subsidence and the surplus with a more intense monsoon circulation. An African Rainfall Pattern Index (ARPI), based on standardized rainfall differences between these regions, is defined for capturing the rainfall contrast over the period from 1900 to 2100. This index increases suggesting that the contrasted rainfall anomaly pattern at Sahelian latitudes is expected to occur more frequently in the future.

[1] This paper analyzes the atmospheric and rainfall anomaly patterns in the African-Indian monsoon region concomitant of warm/cold anomalies confined in the Mediterranean Sea in northern summer. It examines first the similarities and contrasts observed in longitudes, then discusses the results obtained regarding the normal in terms of climate impacts in the Sahelian belt. Statistical results show an opposite African-Indian relationship with stronger (weaker) African (Indian) tropical circulations occurring in warmer (colder) Mediterranean situations and favoring significant increases (decreases) in monsoon circulation, atmospheric moisture content, and deep convection, mainly over the central-eastern Sahel. Model results show that several observed key features can be reproduced through 23 warm/cold anomalies prescribed in the Mediterranean and that warm (cold) situations have an impact on 24 more over the African (Indian) region. Warm experiments generate rainfall excesses in the Sahel with a significant strengthening of southwesterlies. Cold experiments simulate rainfall deficits in the Sahel, associated with an attenuation of southwesterlies in low levels and a zonal moisture transport shifted southward in midlevels. Over India these simulations tend to generate rainfall surplus. Citation: Fontaine, B., P.-A. Monerie, M. Gaetani, and P. Roucou (2011), Climate adjustments over the African-Indian monsoon regions accompanying Mediterranean Sea thermal variability, J. Geophys. Res., 116, D23122, doi:10.1029/2011JD016273.