The role of low-level clouds in the West African monsoon system

Kniffka, Anke; Knippertz, Peter; Fink, Andreas H.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1623-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1623-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Results of the project "Dynamics–aerosol–chemistry–cloud...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1623-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 3

Research article

|

07 Feb 2019

Research article |

| 07 Feb 2019

The role of low-level clouds in the West African monsoon system

Anke Kniffka, Peter Knippertz, and Andreas H. Fink

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Final revised paper (published on 07 Feb 2019)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 13 Sep 2018)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of: The role of low-level clouds in the West African monsoon system', Raphaela Vogel, 11 Oct 2018
- AC1: 'Answer to review by Raphaela Vogel', Anke Kniffka, 15 Dec 2018
RC2: 'Referee comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Oct 2018
- AC2: 'Answer to review by reviewer #1, RC2', Anke Kniffka, 15 Dec 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Anke Kniffka on behalf of the Authors (15 Dec 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (29 Dec 2018) by Ademe Mekonnen

RR by Raphaela Vogel (08 Jan 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (14 Jan 2019)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (15 Jan 2019) by Ademe Mekonnen

AR by Anke Kniffka on behalf of the Authors (18 Jan 2019) Manuscript

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Short summary

The role of low-level clouds in the southern West Africa (SWA) energy balance and the West African monsoon system is assessed via targeted sensitivity studies with the NWP model ICON. We show for the first time that rainfall over SWA depends logarithmically on the optical thickness of low clouds, as these control the diurnal evolution of the planetary boundary layer, vertical stability and finally convection. Small variations in clouds or aerosol have a substantial impact on precipitation.