Author(s)

Semou Ndao¹, Djiondo Ngongang Rinelle², Daouda Badiane¹, Andre Lenouo^2*, Saïdou Moustapha Sall¹

¹LPAO-SF, ESP-University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal.
²Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Douala, Douala, Cameroon.

Monthly means of boundary layer height (BLH) over West Africa are presented based on 36 years (1979-2014) of six-hourly ERA-Interim reanalysis. In this region, we found that there is a link between the West Africa Monsoon (WAM) and the monthly means of BLH in the summer. The trend and empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of BLH are presented, including the mid July variability of BLH with the precipitation. The dominant EOF of BLH accounts for around 42% of the variance with slightly large amplitude in the north while relatively small in the equatorial band. The second EOF which accounts for 16.4%, describes a longitudinal contrast with a zonal gradient. The relationship between BLH and precipitation is found using the canonical correlation analysis (CCA). Significant trends of the first and second pairs of BLH with precipitation are shown. The first and second CCA pair has a correlation of 68% and 60% with 12.2 and 10.8 degrees of freedom respectively. The critical correlation coefficients at the 95% level are 0.21 and 0.65 for the first and second CCA pairs respectively. This first CCA pair mostly determines the arid and semi-arid areas where the rate of explained regional variance is about 78% in the arid area and 73% in the semi-arid area. For the second pair of CCA, the rate of explained regional variance is more than 60% in the Guinea coast and wet equatorial area.

Boundary Layer Height, West Africa Monsoon, Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, CCA

Ndao, S. , Rinelle, D. , Badiane, D. , Lenouo, A. and Sall, S. (2019) Study of Boundary Layer Height over West Africa. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 7, 179-194. doi: 10.4236/gep.2019.711013.