Heat wave monitoring over West African cities: uncertainties, characterization and recent trends

Ngoungue Langue, Cedric Gacial; Lavaysse, Christophe; Vrac, Mathieu; Flamant, Cyrille

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1313-2023

Articles | Volume 23, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1313-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1313-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 23, issue 4

Research article

|

05 Apr 2023

Research article |

| 05 Apr 2023

Heat wave monitoring over West African cities: uncertainties, characterization and recent trends

Cedric Gacial Ngoungue Langue, Christophe Lavaysse, Mathieu Vrac, and Cyrille Flamant

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1313-2023-supplement

Data sets

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, G. Biavati, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, I. Rozum, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, D. Dee, and J.-N. Thépaut https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

MERRA-2 tavg1_2d_slv_Nx: 2d,1-Hourly,Time-Averaged,Single-Level,Assimilation,Single-Level Diagnostics V5.12.4 Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) https://doi.org/10.5067/VJAFPLI1CSIV

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Short summary

Heat waves (HWs) are climatic hazards that affect the planet. We assess here uncertainties encountered in the process of HW detection and analyse their recent trends in West Africa using reanalysis data. Three types of uncertainty have been investigated. We identified 6 years with higher frequency of HWs, possibly due to higher sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Atlantic. We noticed an increase in HW characteristics during the last decade, which could be a consequence of climate change.