TITLE:
On the Causes of the Minor Dry Season over the Coastal Region of the Northern Gulf of Guinea
AUTHORS:
Angora Aman, Elisee Toualy, Fidele Yoroba
KEYWORDS:
Dry Season, West African Monsoon, Gulf of Guinea, Coastal Upwelling, Convective Rainfall
JOURNAL NAME:
Atmospheric and Climate Sciences,
Vol.8 No.2,
February
23,
2018
ABSTRACT: Along the littoral shelf of northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea (GG), a minor dry season of the rainfall regime is concomitantly observed with the occurrence of a major coastal upwelling in July-August-September (JAS). It was then supposed that this upwelling drives that minor dry season. But no previous studies have tried to understand this minor dry season and, this study is the first focusing on this question. The investigations undertaken to explain this dry season on the Ivorian littoral shelf with the ERA-Interim data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts over the 1980-2016 period have shown that the minor dry season is driven by the Northward migration of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) during this period and, enhanced by the occurrence of the major coastal upwelling of the northern GG at the same time. These two phenomena interact as follow: i) the ITCZ is located in JAS far in the north cutting off convective processes along the coast, ii) the air on the coastal region is poor in humidity, iii) the air temperature on the bordering region of the GG is cooled by the coastal upwelling to value less than 26°C and not favorable for providing convection.