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Active phases and pauses during the installation of the West African monsoon through 5‐day CMAP rainfall data (1979–2001)
Author(s) -
Louvet S.,
Fontaine B.,
Roucou P.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2003gl018058
Subject(s) - varimax rotation , climatology , environmental science , excursion , meteorology , mathematics , geography , statistics , geology , cronbach's alpha , descriptive statistics , political science , law
Objective diagnostic analyses based on PCA decomposition, Varimax rotation and low‐pass filters (≥1 month) are performed on the 5‐day CMAP rainfall data over West Africa. The northward excursion of the rainbelt can be divided into 4 basic subperiods each composed of an equilibrium period (pause) followed by a rapid increase (active phase) of the system. We suggest easy criteria to automatically detect these events and propose a calendar for the 23 years. The pauses are centered around 27–28 March (pause #1), between 29 April and 2 May (pause #2), 11 June (pause #3) and 24 July (pause # 4) with standard deviations of 7–11 days. The phase of any pause impacts on the phase of other pauses. Pause #4, starting earlier, is preceded by earlier pauses #2 and #3, then is followed by an earlier annual rainfall maximum and more abundant June–August amounts.