A meteorological dataset of the West African monsoon during the 2016 DACCIWA campaign

Martin Kohler (1) , Geoffrey Bessardon , Barbara Brooks , Norbert Kalthoff , Fabienne Lohou (2) , Bianca Adler (1) , Oluwagbemiga Olawale Jegede , Barbara Altstädter , Leonard Kofitse Amekudzi , Jeffrey Nii Armah Aryee , Winifred Ayinpogbilla Atiah , Muritala Ayoola , Karmen Babić (1) , Konrad Bärfuss , Yannick Bezombes (2) , Guillaume Bret (2) , Pierre-Etienne Brilouet (2) , Fred Cayle-Aethelhard , Sylvester Danuor , Claire Delon (2) , Solene Derrien (2) , Cheikh Dione (2) , Pierre Durand (2) , Kwabena Fosu-Amankwah , Omar Gabella (3, 2) , James Groves , Jan Handwerker (1) , Corinne Jambert (2) , Norbert Kunka , Astrid Lampert , Jérémy Leclercq (2) , Marie Lothon (2) , Patrice Medina (2) , Arnaud Miere (4) , Falk Pätzold , Xabier Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia , Irene Reinares Martínez (2) , Steven Sharpe , Victoria Smith , Andreas Wieser (1)

1 Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research
2 LAERO - Laboratoire d'aérologie
3 LUPM - Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier
4 OMP - Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées

As part of the Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) project, extensive in-situ measurements of the southern West African atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) have been performed at three supersites Kumasi (Ghana), Savè (Benin) and Ile-Ife (Nigeria) during the 2016 monsoon period (June and July). The measurements were designed to provide data for advancing our understanding of the relevant processes governing the formation, persistence and dissolution of nocturnal low-level stratus clouds and their influence on the daytime ABL in southern West Africa. An extensive low-level cloud deck often forms during the night and persists long into the following day strongly influencing the ABL diurnal cycle. Although the clouds are of a high significance for the regional climate, the dearth of observations in this region has hindered process understanding. Here, an overview of the measurements ranging from near-surface observations, cloud characteristics, aerosol and precipitation to the dynamics and thermodynamics in the ABL and above, and data processing is given. So-far achieved scientific findings, based on the dataset analyses, are briefly overviewed.

Domaines: Météorologie

Martin Kohler, Geoffrey Bessardon, Barbara Brooks, Norbert Kalthoff, Fabienne Lohou, et al.. A meteorological dataset of the West African monsoon during the 2016 DACCIWA campaign. Scientific Data , 2022, 9 (1), pp.174. ⟨10.1038/s41597-022-01277-7⟩. ⟨hal-03668887⟩