Abstract. Projections of the response of Sahel rainfall to future global warming diverge significantly. Meanwhile, paleoclimatic records suggest that Sahel rainfall is capable of abrupt transitions in response to gradual forcing. Here we present climate modeling evidence for the possibility of an abrupt intensification of Sahel rainfall under future climate change. Analyzing 30 coupled global c...

A new satellite-based rainfall monitoring algorithm that integrates the strengths of both low Earth-orbiting (LEO) and geostationary Earth-orbiting (GEO) satellite information has been developed. The Lagrangian Model (LMODEL) algorithm combines a 2D cloud-advection tracking system and a GEO data–driven cloud development and rainfall generation model with procedures to update model parameters an...

Tropical Applications of Meteorology Using Satellite Data and Ground-Based Observations (TAMSAT) rainfall monitoring products have been extended to provide spatially contiguous rainfall estimates across Africa. This has been achieved through a new, climatology-based calibration, which varies in both space and time. As a result, cumulative estimates of rainfall are now issued at the end of each ...

Abstract. Projections of the response of Sahel rainfall to future global warming diverge significantly. Meanwhile, paleoclimatic records suggest that Sahel rainfall is capable of abrupt transitions in response to gradual forcing. Here we present climate modeling evidence for the possibility of an abrupt intensification of Sahel rainfall under future climate change. Analyzing 30 coupled global c...

Multiple observational data sets and atmosphere-only simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 are analyzed to characterize recent rainfall variability and trends over Africa focusing on 1983–2010. Data sets exhibiting spurious variability, linked in part to a reduction in rain gauge density, were identified. The remaining observations display coherent increases in annu...

We present a detailed analysis of summer monsoon rainfall over the Indian peninsular using nonlinear spatial correlations. This analysis is carried out employing the tools of complex networks and a measure of nonlinear correlation for point processes such as rainfall, called event synchronization. This study provides valuable insights into the spatial organization, scales, and structure of the ...

Zimbabwe's homogeneous precipitation regions are investigated by means of principal component analysis (PCA) with regard to the underlying processes related to ENSO and/or Indian Ocean Dipole zonal mode (IODZM). Station standardized precipitation index rather than direct rainfall values represent the data matrix used in the PCA. The results indicate that the country's rainfall is highly homogen...

Short duration design rainfall intensity data is a basic input to many water related projects, particularly in urban drainage design. The main problem in deriving short duration design rainfall data is the lack of continuous pluviograph rainfall data. The use of regionalisation techniques is common in design rainfall estimation, which pools data from a large region. This paper presents a region...

The accurate estimation of gridded daily precipitation is critical to hydrological modelling and water resource assessment. High resolution precipitation datasets based on gauge rainfall are the primary input to spatially distributed rainfall-runoff models and water balance calculations (e.g. Chiew et al., 2008). The spatial heterogeneity of rainfall variability is currently not captured adequa...

EXTENDED ABSTRACT A semi-parametric stochastic model for generation of daily precipitation amounts, simultaneously at a collection of stations in a way that preserves realistic spatial correlations, accommodates seasonality, and reproduces a number of key aspects of the distributional and dependence properties of observed rainfall is described and illustrated. Following a conventional weather g...