US-West Africa Workshop: Validation of TRMM Rainfall Data over West Africa, Tallahassee, Florida, February 2000

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9911918This award supports four African participants in the US-West Africa Workshop on Validation of TRMM Rainfall Data over West Africa, to be held in Tallahassee, Florida, February 2000. Additional participants include seven from the United States, and six other meteorologists from West Africa. (The National Air and Space Administration and Florida State University are providing support for the additional African participants.) The co-organizers are Professor Sharon Nicholson, of the Department of Meteorology at Florida State University and Mr. Bonaventure Some, with the Climatological Data Bank at the African Center of Meteorological Applications for Development, in Niger. The workshop will include meteorologists from the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gambia, and Niger. Africa has experienced dramatic fluctuations of precipitation on interannual and interdecadal time scales. Severe droughts are common, and three-quarters of Africa is arid or semi-arid. Precipitation monitoring is of great importance throughout Africa since many of its peoples are still engaged in agricultural pursuits. But for many areas, precipitation data is either unavailable or too unreliable to be used for monitoring. The key to long-term monitoring of Africa's environment lies in the development of satellite methods for rainfall assessment. Measurements from the TRMM satellite can provide good spatial coverage, but the results obtained from the algorithms used in satellite calibration need to be validated by ground measurements. The main purposes of this workshop are to facilitate the acquisition and quality control of gauge data, and to involve West African countries in the validation process. The African participants will bring their in-situ station data on monthly precipitation for 1998. The participants will use these data in the validation process to determine how TRMM values compare with their gridded, quality-controlled station data. Additionally, intercomparisons will be made with other satellite estimates in order to validate those data as well. This validation process can reduce the high cost of purchasing data from some countries, and also minimize difficulties related to the use of such data. Plans will also be made for the acquisition of similar data for 1999, and for the eventual acquisition of daily data to validate five-day estimates. The African participants will also become acquainted with data collected from American meteorological satellites. The results of this workshop should increase the current knowledge about climate variability of the Sahel region on interannual and interdecadal time scales. The workshop will also foster interactions among and between the US and African participants, which are expected to lead to future collaborative research activities. The Division of International Programs and the Division of Atmospheric Sciences are jointly supporting this workshop.