Performance of CMIP6 HighResMIP Simulations on West African Drought

This study evaluated the performance of seven CMIP6 HighResMIP models in simulations drought over two sub-regions West Africa: Guinea coast and Sahel during historical period 1985–2014, terms potential evapotranspiration index (PET), climatic water availability (CWA), standardized precipitation (SPEI) at three time scales (i.e., 1, 3, 12 months). The Climate Research Unit (CRU) TS v4.03 datasets were used as observation reference. shows that PET CWA August rainfall annual peak) less than 30 200 mm/month coast, respectively. corresponding values 100 -50 mm/month, A significant decreasing trend was observed (except Nigeria) Sahel. frequencies extreme severe droughts Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone period. show different behaviors simulating all abovementioned features. Among simulations, ENSEMBLE, ECMWF, IPSL generally perform better almost statistical indices used, although there are still biases need to be resolved models.