West Africa's moist convective environment as observed by the Atmospheric <scp>InfraRed</scp> Sounder ( <scp>AIRS</scp> )

Knowledge of the seasonal positioning Intertropical Discontinuity (ITD) is critical to understanding moist convective processes and associated rainfall over West Africa. This study constitutes a new analysis seasonality convection Africa, relative ITD, based on NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) measurements from 2003 2018. Results show that AIRS resolves march including its inherent diurnal-scale variations. captures north–south daytime skin temperature dipole around with greater temperatures north, especially during March–August. In vicinity nighttime profiles indicate increased instability characteristic nocturnal thunderstorm propagation. For seven Ghana weather stations, we positive moisture equivalent potential anomalies coincide observed days. On these days, mean latitude AIRS-derived ITD displaced 3°, 0.2°, 2° north DJF, MAM, SON climatological positions, respectively, 1.2° south in JJA. Among four common initiation indices considered, K-index determined be most skillful. The findings this contribute Global Challenges Research Fund, African Science for Weather Information Forecasting Techniques project's mission build local tropical forecasting capacity capabilities