AGS-PRF: The Response of African Monsoon Variability to Elevated CO2 and Implications for Future Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity

This project will provide new insights into the long-standing problem of understanding future tropical cyclone (TC) activity. The results will provide valuable information for future planning of resource management in water sensitive regions of the African Sahel and infrastructure of coastal communities affected by Atlantic TCs.

The primary goal of this project is to explore how the dynamics of African Easterly Waves (AEW) respond to a climate forcing of doubled atmospheric CO2 and determine the implications for future Atlantic TC activity. This will be achieved through a suite of simulations with a coupled and super-parameterized global climate model that uses embedded cloud resolving models to reproduce a realistic interaction between convection and large-scale processes. Additional sensitivity experiments will be conducted to isolate the slow and fast responses of the climate system, and examine how they affect AEWs. The analysis will also identify how future AEWs will affect Atlantic TC activity through consideration of the marsupial paradigm and remote influences on the Atlantic TC genesis potential.