Occurrence of Extreme Events in West Africa and Relationship with the Madden Julian Oscillation

West Africa region faces frequent catastrophic famines associated with recurrent hazards such as droughts, floods and other climatic extremes. The last IPCC report show that the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events will increase at all levels of global warming. Many research studies attempt to understand the processes linked to the significant changes in climate over the tropical regions. The main goal of this study is to investigate the impact of MJO on the occurrence of extreme rainfall events. The analysis of observation shows that MJO exerts a large and significant impact on the probability of observing extreme precipitation. The spatial patterns of extreme precipitation frequencies in both categories (strong and weak) approximately follow those of the seasonal precipitation pattern with some noticeable maxima over orographic regions. The impact of MJO on precipitation extreme frequency appears to be more pronounced over the Guineans regions to the south of 12°N.