Adapting the weather research and forecasting model for the simulation of regional climate in East Africa

The regional climate model (RCM) is a tool to fill the gap between the outcome of global climate model and the demand of regional government and society for regional climate information.; In order to adapt WRF for long term integration for climate application, the model and its pre- and post-processors are modified in several aspects, including SST and other surface parameters treatment, and exponential relaxation lateral boundary. In this study, we also transferred an NCAR pre-released version of CAM3 radiation scheme for WRF to the WRF standard release versions. The preliminary investigation demonstrates that the model has shown the encouraging and promising results on simulating regional climate.; The objective of this study is to investigate the hydrological cycle in the East Africa region. Through data analysis, the water channel in the East Africa region from October to December is determined. The variability of the moisture transport directly results in the variability from of precipitation in OND.; To investigate the physical processes of the variability of the moisture transport, five seasonal simulations from September to December for 1994 to 1998. The model also reproduces many surface features of the interannual variability related to IODM changes. The seasonal change of the monsoon system is also well represented. The results show the interannual variability in East Africa and the adjacent region is mainly related to the variability of the Indian Ocean SST. The current conclusions are very preliminary and the results should be further carefully examined in future publications.