The AMMA (African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis) project was organized in recent years with the main goal of obtaining a better understanding of the intra-seasonal and interannual variability of the west-African monsoon (WAM). Land-atmosphere coupling is theorized to be significant in this region, therefore a high priority goal of AMMA is therefore to better understand and model the influence of the spatio-temporal variability of surface processes on the atmospheric circulation patterns and the regional water cycle.

    The AMMA Land surface Model Intercomparison Project (ALMIP) is part of the AMMA-EU (European Union) and API (Action Programmée Interorganisme: AMMA French program) work packages (WP) 4.1. It is being conducted at CNRM (Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques: National Center for Meteorological Research) and CESBIO (Centre Etudes Spatiales de la BIOsphère: Center for the Study of the Biosphere from Space), in Toulouse, France. The ALMIP Phase 1 Overview article reference is here.

Download the November, 2009, issue of GEWEX NEWS for more information on ALMIP2 (see pages 9-10).

• West African Monsoon Modeling and Evaluation WAMME
• ALMIP simulations coupled to the Community Microwave Emission Model (CMEM) ALMIP-MEM
• AMMA Model Intercomparison Project AMMA-MIP

• POSTEL Service Centre at MEDIAS-France for customizing and providing the LSA SAF products.
• The LAND-SAF project for providing us with the radiative flux products
• We would like to extend our gratitude to the people working on the AMMA-SAT database who have generated the EPSAT precipitation product developped by the Precip-AMMA group at IPSL/LMD.
• The European Centre for Medium Range Weather prediction (ECMWF) for atmospheric data and assistance
• The Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Group for the TRMM 3B42 V6 product
• Many more yet to be awknowledged!