Future changes in the mean and variability of extreme rainfall indices over the Guinea coast and role of the Atlantic equatorial mode

Abstract

The occurrence of climate extremes could have dramatic impacts on various sectors such as agriculture, water supply, and energy production. This study aims to understand part of the variability in the extreme rainfall indices over Guinea coast that can be related to the Atlantic equatorial mode (AEM), whose positive phases are associated with an increase in the intensity and frequency of rainfall events. We use six extreme indices computed from six observed rainfall databases and historical and SSP5-8.5 simulations from 24 general circulation models (GCMs) that participate in the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to study changes in extreme rainfall events over Guinea coast during July–September. Under present-day conditions, we found that current GCMs clearly overestimate the frequency of wet events and the maximum number of consecutive wet days. The magnitude of the other extreme indices simulated is within the range of the observations which, moreover, present a large spread. Our results confirm the existing studies. However, less attention has been paid to the evaluation of the modelled rainfall extremes associated with the AEM under different climate conditions, while the variability of the AEM is expected to decrease in the future, with a potentially significant impact on the extreme events. Here, we use six (one) observed rainfall (sea surface temperature) data and 24 GCM outputs to investigate the present-day, near-term, mid-term, and long-term future links between the AEM and the extreme rainfall events over the Guinea coast. The biases in the extreme rainfall responses to the AEM are subject to a large spread across the different models and observations. For the long-term future (2080–2099), less frequent and more intense rainfall events are projected. As an illustration, the multimodel ensemble median (EnsMedian) maximum rainfall during 5 consecutive wet days (RX5day) would be 21 % higher than under present-day conditions. Moreover, the variability of the majority of the extreme indices over the Guinea coast is projected to increase (48 % for RX5day in the long-term future). By contrast, the decreased variability of the AEM in a warmer climate leads to a reduced magnitude of the rainfall extreme responses associated with AEM over the Guinea coast. While under present-day conditions the AEM explains 18 % of the RX5day variance in the EnsMedian, this value is reduced to 8 % at the end of 21st century. As a consequence, in absolute, there is a projected increase in the total variability of most of the extreme rainfall indices, but the contribution of the AEM to this variability weakens in a warmer future climate.