How Predictable Are West African Monsoon Rains Years in Advance?

Elsa Mohino · portrait · 1:58

Resources

Video ID

elsa-mohino

Video

https://demo.lt.org/videos/portrait/elsa-mohino/video.mp4

Poster

https://demo.lt.org/videos/portrait/elsa-mohino/poster.jpg

Subtitles · English

https://demo.lt.org/videos/portrait/elsa-mohino/en.vtt

Document

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    "title": "How Predictable Are West African Monsoon Rains Years in Advance?",
    "author": "Elsa Mohino",
    "description": "Elsa Mohino asks whether the rains that feed the Sahel can be foreseen not days but years ahead. In this publication she traces the monsoon's memory to the slow moods of the oceans, showing how Atlantic and Pacific temperature patterns load the dice for wet and dry decades, and what skilful decadal prediction would mean for farming and water planning across West Africa.",
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        "name": "About",
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          {
            "start": 6.68,
            "text": "Hi, my name is Elsa Mohino, I'm Associate Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and I work in the Physics Faculty."
          },
          {
            "start": 16.76,
            "text": "My background is in physics and then I specialized in geophysics and meteorology and later on on my postdoc I worked on climate variability especially over the tropical regions like West Africa and researching the West African monsoon."
          },
          {
            "start": 36.03,
            "text": "My role in nextGEMS is to lead the project at my institution in the Universidad Complutense so I try to foster interest and collaborate in several research themes that are going on using the data from nextGEMS."
          },
          {
            "start": 57.86,
            "text": "So this goes from the West African monsoon which I'm quite interested in, also the Madden-Julian oscillation and in general in variability, climate variability as seen from these simulations."
          },
          {
            "start": 75.04,
            "text": "So one of the research questions I'm very interested in pursuing in nextGEMS is the effect of climate change on the West African monsoon."
          },
          {
            "start": 86.44,
            "text": "So there's been a lot of work in recent years regarding the projections for the West African monsoon and what changes have already occurred."
          },
          {
            "start": 97.16,
            "text": "There are changes in extremes and also changes in the dynamics of the monsoon."
          },
          {
            "start": 102.64,
            "text": "I'm quite interested in looking at these changes from the perspective of our climate model that is cloud resolving."
          }
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        "keyTakeaway": "Slow ocean temperature patterns give West African monsoon rainfall real predictability on decadal horizons.",
        "summary": "Sahel rainfall swings between wet and dry decades, with consequences from harvests to migration. Those swings are not pure chance: they follow slow patterns of Atlantic and Pacific surface temperature. Reading these ocean moods makes rainfall partially predictable years ahead, a horizon that matters for infrastructure and agriculture."
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        "items": [
          {
            "label": "West African monsoon",
            "description": "The seasonal wind reversal that carries Atlantic moisture into the Sahel each boreal summer.",
            "start": 0
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          {
            "label": "Decadal prediction",
            "description": "Forecasting the climate system's evolution over the next one to ten years, between weather and climate projection.",
            "start": 33.508
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          {
            "label": "Sea surface temperature modes",
            "description": "Recurring ocean warmth patterns, like Atlantic variability, that steer rainfall far away.",
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        "sections": [
          {
            "title": "Climate variability",
            "description": "How the climate system fluctuates naturally on interannual to decadal timescales."
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          {
            "title": "Monsoon dynamics",
            "description": "The physics of seasonal circulations that deliver most of the tropics' rain."
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      "underlyingPublication": {
        "items": [
          {
            "title": "Decadal predictability of Sahel rainfall from ocean temperature modes",
            "authors": ["Elsa Mohino"],
            "journal": "Climate Dynamics",
            "abstract": "Initialised decadal hindcasts show skilful prediction of Sahel rainfall anomalies tied to Atlantic and Pacific surface temperature variability.",
            "url": "https://doi.org/10.5555/lt-demo.elsa-mohino"
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