Evaluation of Reanalysis Estimates of Precipitation, Radiation, and Temperature over Benin (West Africa)

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AuteurAHAMIDE, BERNARD
AuteurBODJRENOU, RENE
AuteurCOHARD, JEAN MARTIAL
Date d'ajout2026-06-02T16:06:57Z
Date de disponibilite2026-06-02T16:06:57Z
Date de publication2023
ResumeABSTRACT: In West Africa, climatic data issues, especially availability and quality, remain a significant constraint to the development and application of distributed hydrological modeling. As alternatives to ground-based observations, reanalysis products have received increasing attention in recent years. This study aims to evaluate three reanalysis products, namely, ERA5, Water and Global Change (WATCH) Forcing Data (WFD) ERA5 (WFDE5), and MERRA-2, from 1981 to 2019 to determine their ability to represent four hydrological climates variables over a range of space and time scales in Benin. The variables from the reanalysis products are compared with point station databased metrics Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE), mean absolute error (MAE), correlation, and relative error in precipitation annual (REPA). The results show that ERA5 presents a better correlation for annual mean temperature (between 0.74 and 0.90) than do WFDE5 (0.63–0.78) and MERRA-2 (0.25–0.65). Both ERA5 and WFDE5 are able to reproduce the observed upward trend of temperature (0.28C decade21 ) in the region. We noted a systematic cold bias of ;1.38C in all reanalyses except WFDE5 (;0.18C). On the monthly time scale, the temperature of the region is better reproduced by ERA5 and WFDE5 (KGE $ 0.80) than by MERRA-2 (KGE , 0.5). At all time scales, WFDE5 produces the best MAE scores for longwave (LW) and shortwave (SW) radiation, followed by ERA5. WFDE5 also provides the best estimates for the annual precipitation (REPA 2 ]225, 25[ and KGE $ 50% at most stations). ERA5 produces similar results, but MERRA-2 performs poorly in all the metrics. In addition, ERA5 and WFDE5 reproduce the bimodal rainfall regime in southern Benin, unlike MERRA-2, but all products have too many small rainfall events.
Autre identifiantBECDB-13294
URIhttps://dspace.uac.bj/handle/123456789/11407
Languefr
Fait partie deJOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY
SujetAfrica
Sujetclimate change
SujetClimate Variability
SujetHydrometeorology
SujetLongwave radiation
Sujettempérature
TitreEvaluation of Reanalysis Estimates of Precipitation, Radiation, and Temperature over Benin (West Africa)
TypeArticle

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