Impact of lockdown due to outbreak of COVID on future climate simulations over West Africa: preliminary result from MRI-ESM2.0 Model

Abstract

The outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID 19) necessitated global lockdown to curtail its spread for the greater part of year 2020. These lockdowns led to shutting down of human activities and ultimately led to reduction in greenhouse gas emission during the period. The study seeks to assess the impact of this reduction on the climate of West Africa. A global Climate Model, MRI-ESM2.0, participating in the CovidMIP experiment is used in this assessment. The model was run at normal SSP245 scenario and SSP245-COVID scenario, the latter is when GHG reduced due to Covid lockdown, which is regarded as a forcing in the model. The difference between SSP245-COVID scenario and simulations at SSP245 scenario was used to quantify the impact of lockdown. Result shows that there is a reduction in 2 m, maximum and minimum temperature in the Sahelian part of West Africa up to anomaly of 0.5^oC. There is however warming anomaly in the Guinea coast. Rainfall anomalies up to -70 mm/month anomaly is simulated in most part of Nigeria and along the coastal areas of Benin, Togo, Ghana and Cote-D’ivoire. The slowing down of warming is however not statistically significant as the lockdown is not sustained enough to have appreciable impact on on-going warming trend.