Long-term evolution of West African Monsoon in climate projections

Climate change has important repercussions on the global economy, particularly for countries in the West African region.This study analyzed the climate change signal in West Africa through multivariate statistical analyses based mainly on CMIP5 products covering the historical period and climate projections.The results of this analysis show that some patterns of rainfall evolution in the context of climate projections are already present over the historical period, in particular the Sahelian rainfall dipole, which is found in the overall average for the 2100 horizon.Analysis of the teleconnections in long-term variability between the SST and MAO, on the one hand, and the Sahelian Heat Low and MAO, on the other, for the 21st century projections, through an SVD analysis, has shown that the dominant modes of covariability that emerge result in quite different rainfall structures over the Sahel, and that we should not limit ourselves to presenting, as is often done, the Sahelian dipole as the unique rainfall structure that emerges at the end of the century.