IAP General Circulation Models: A First Step Towards Developing a Local Area Model for Weather Prediction in Nigeria

In an earlier study, the Atmospheric Models Intercomparison Program (AMIP) simulations of African climate using the nine-layer gridpoint atmospheric general circulation model were found to be closely relat-ed to the observed European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) temperature data at 500 and 850 hPa. This paper presents the analysis of the simulation of African climate using the Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System Model (IAP/ LASG GOALS) and the nine-layer spectral general circu-lation model rhomboidally truncated at zonal wave number 15 (L9RI5) developed at the Institute of At-mospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. Both model simulations were not significantly different from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Reanalysis monthly mean data for 1989-1995 in the case of surface air temperature, sea level pressure and precipitation, with the GOALS reproducing the seasonal mean climate over Africa better. The implications of the encouraging re-sults in developing a local area model for Nigeria have been discussed. The great role of topography in the developing of general circulation models for numerical modelling of weather and climate has been stressed.