Collaborative Research: Understanding Congo Rainfall Variability and Trends

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Central African forests, the driest and second largest on Earth, have experienced a long-term drying trend. A recent study detected a widespread decline in forest photosynthetic capacity over the Congo Basin and attributed this large-scale decline, at least partially, to this drying trend. Persistent drought in the region could alter the Congolese forest composition and structure in a manner that might favor the spread of drought tolerant species and thus impact biodiversity, carbon storage, and the global water cycle. Understanding the nature and cause of this drought and assessing its impacts on the forests are of significant societal, environmental, and economic importance. Understanding of climatic variability in the Congo basin is greatly hindered by a lack of observations and resources due to political, economic and historical factors. Under this project, a combination of observational and modeling studies will be undertaken to investigate the nature and cause of the Congo rainfall variability in the 20th century. The role of global sea surface temperatures will be examined. For the observational component, observations and reanalysis data will be utilized to identify major patterns and drivers of the variability. For the modeling component, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) simulations and idealized climate model simulations will be examined to investigate the physical mechanisms for the Congo drought. The relative contribution of anthropogenic versus natural forcing on the observed rainfall decadal variability over the Congo Basin will be investigated.