The Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa field campaign: Overview and research highlights

Cyrille Flamant (1) , Peter Knippertz (2) , Andreas H. Fink (2) , Aristide Akpo (3) , Barbara J. Brooks (3) , Christine J. Chiu (4) , Hugh Coe (5) , Sylvester Danuor (6) , Mat J. Evans (7, 8) , Oluwagbemiga Jegede (9) , Norbert Kalthoff (2) , Abdourahamane Konaré (10) , Catherine Liousse (11) , Fabienne Lohou (11) , Céline Mari (11) , Hans Schlager (12) , Alfons Schwarzenboeck (13) , Bianca Adler (2) , Leonard Amekudzi (6) , Jeffrey Aryee (6) , Muritala Ayoola (9) , Anneke M. Batenburg (14) , Geoffrey Bessardon (3, 15) , Stephan Borrmann (14) , Joël Brito (13) , Keith N. Bower (5) , Frédéric Burnet (16) , Valéry Catoire (17) , Aurélie Colomb (13) , Claude Denjean (16) , Kwabena Fosu-Amankwah (6) , Peter G. Hill (4) , James K.W. Lee (7) , Marie Lothon (11) , Marlon Maranan (2) , John Marsham (3) , Rémi Meynadier (1) , Jean-Blaise Ngamini (18) , Philip Rosenberg (19) , Daniel Sauer (12) , Victoria Smith (19) , Greta Stratmann (12) , Jonathan W. Taylor (5) , Christiane Voigt (12) , Véronique Yoboué (10)

1 TROPO - LATMOS
2 IMK - Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research
3 NCAS - National Centre for Atmospheric Science [Leeds]
4 Department of Meteorology [Reading]
5 SEES - School of Earth and Environmental Sciences [Manchester]
6 KNUST - Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
7 WACL - Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories
8 NCAS - National Centre for Atmospheric Science [York]
9 Department of Physics and Engineering Physics [Nigeria]
10 Laboratoire de Physique de l’Atmosphère [Abidjan]
11 LAERO - Laboratoire d'aérologie
12 IPA - DLR Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre
13 LaMP - Laboratoire de Météorologie Physique
14 MPIC - Max-Planck-Institut für Chemie
15 SEE - School of Earth and Environment [Leeds]
16 CNRM - Centre national de recherches météorologiques
17 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
18 ASECNA - Agence pour la sécurité de la navigation aérienne en Afrique et à Madagascar
19 ICAS - Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science [Leeds]

Unprecedented ground-based and aircraft measurements in June-July 2016 in southern West Africa characterize atmospheric composition and dynamics, low-level cloud properties, the diurnal cycle, and air pollution impacts on health. The EU-funded project DACCIWA (Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa) investigates the relationship between weather, climate, and air pollution in southern West Africa, an area with rapid population growth, urbanisation, and increase in anthropogenic aerosol emissions. The air over this region contains a unique mixture of natural and anthropogenic gases, liquid droplets and particles, emitted in an environment, in which multi-layer clouds frequently form. These exert a large influence on the local weather and climate, mainly due to their impact on radiation, the surface energy balance, and thus the diurnal cycle of the atmospheric boundary layer. In June and July 2016, DACCIWA organized a major international field campaign in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. Three supersites in Kumasi, Savè, and Ile-Ife conducted permanent measurements and 15 Intensive observation periods. Three European aircraft together flew 50 research flights between 27 June and 16 July 2016 for a total of 155 hours. DACCIWA scientists launched weather balloons several times a day across the region (772 in total), measured urban emissions, and evaluated health data. The main objective was to build robust statistics of atmospheric composition, dynamics, and low-level cloud properties in various chemical landscapes to investigate their mutual interactions. This article presents an overview of the DACCIWA field campaign activities as well as some first research highlights. The rich data obtained during the campaign will be made available to the scientific community and help to advance scientific understanding, modeling, and monitoring the atmosphere over southern West Africa.

Domains: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics [physics.ao-ph]; Climatology

Cyrille Flamant, Peter Knippertz, Andreas H. Fink, Aristide Akpo, Barbara J. Brooks, et al.. The Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa field campaign: Overview and research highlights. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2018, 99 (1), pp.83-104. ⟨10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0256.1⟩. ⟨insu-01564453⟩