Changes in land surface effects on organised convection in a convection-permitting climate projection

Convection-permitting (CP) climate simulations represent a major advance in capturing land surface effects on convection. From observational analyses in West Africa, we know that land surface conditions are a major driver of storm initiation as well as intensification during later stages of the storm life cycle. Dry soils of 10 km to several 100s of km scale can cause anomalous warming of the planetary boundary layer and affect horizontal circulations, regional moisture convergence as well as instability. However, to date it remains unclear whether, in a warming climate, larger and more intense storms may change the scale and frequency of surface patterns, feeding back on these identified processes. Here, we evaluate the ability of a pioneering convection-permitting (4.4km) pan-African climate simulation to capture the observed land effects on the pre-convective environment in West Africa and subsequent storm characteristics. This is compared to a CP climate projection representing a decade under a very high emission scenario around 2100 in order to reveal potential changes in process interactions and consequences for organised convection in the future.