The dynamics of the African Easterly Jet. Part II: GCM simulations

We examine the dynamics of the African easterly jet (AEJ) in the Aries Global Climate Model. The model's AEJ is generally too weak. Preliminary results suggest that the strength of the model AEJ is relatively insensitive to the intensity of deep convection over sub-Saharan Africa. Instead, we believe the underprediction of AEJ strength in the Aries GCM is related to insufficient boundary layer heating over the Sahara. In this presentation we will describe the sensitivity of our GCM results to changes in boundary layer and land surface parameterizations.