The large-scale water cycle of the West African monsoon

The vertically integrated water budget of West Africa is investigated with a hybrid dataset based on observational and modelling products elaborated by the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (AMMA) and with several numerical weather prediction (NWP) products including the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) AMMA reanalysis. Seasonal and intraseasonal variations are quantified over the period 2002-2007. Links between the budget terms are analyzed regionally, from the Guinean coast to the Sahel zone. Water budgets from the NWP systems are intercompared and evaluated against the hybrid dataset. Large deficiencies are evidenced in all the NWP products. Hypotheses are proposed about their origins and several improvements are foreseen