The impact of soil moisture initialization on seasonal precipitation in West Africa

The relationship between late spring (May-June) soil moisture and summer precipitation (July-August) is examined based on Reanalysis-2 (R-2) data analysis and Regional Spectral Model (RSM) simulations. Results will be presented from (1) an idealized initialization experiment that consists of a one-month integration to assess the atmospheric response to extreme dry and wet soil conditions, (2) an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of 1981-2004 May-June monthly R-2 soil moisture data to identify the leading modes of soil moisture variability in the region and (3) a realistic initialization experiment that consists of a seasonal integration (May-August) initialized with soil moisture patterns that are characteristic of the first two leading modes of soil moisture variability.