Collaborative Research: Shifting Drought Patterns in West Africa: Constraining Model Simulations with Paleo Reconstructions

Drought has large societal impacts in West Africa, however there is little known about the natural variability in rainfall through time because of the lack of paleoclimate reconstructions from this region. In addition, climate model projections of drought in the future are inconsistent, which is a challenge for drought risk management. Thus there is a strong need for reconstructions of past drought in order to characterize the natural variability and how this variability may have changed with human-caused climate change. This project will utilize field schools in Ghana and Senegal to collect samples and contribute to dendrochronology capacity building in West Africa. The goal of this project is to collect samples from Senegal and Ghana from four tree species that have been shown to be useful for paleoclimate reconstruction. The sample collection will be through a yearly field school funded by the project, and will include training of local partners. The data will be used to reconstruct hydroclimate through time, and will be incorporated into the West Sub-Saharan Drought Atlas gridded drought reconstruction. The project will estimate hydrological and agropastoral drought and investigate drought variability on seasonal and centennial timescales at high resolution. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.