Fig 1.
Map of Ghana showing the existing ACZs namely: Northern, Transition, Forest and Coastal belts.
The black solid lines demarcates the zone boundaries and were adapted from Amekudzi et. al. [8]. Across the zones are the spatial distribution of ground-based GMet synoptic weather stations (inverted triangles), and other ground-based weather stations (circles) from which data were collected. The color gradient of each triangle or circle indicates the percentage of daily rainfall data available.
Table 1.
GMet stations and the percentage of data available over the period 1981–2010.
Table 2.
Seasonality Index (SI) class limits and the associated rainfall regimes.
adapted from [29].
Fig 2.
A flowchart illustrating the steps followed to produce the new ACZ map.
Fig 3.
A map of Ghana showing the contrasts in seasonal rainfall indices.
These maps were produced using SI values computed from the GPCC and ground-based weather stations rainfall data. The black solid lines show the geographical boundaries of areas with identical SI values.
Fig 4.
The map of Ghana showing mean temperature patterns.
The map was produced from mean temperature climatology computed from ERA5 and ground-based weather station temperature data for the period 1981–2010.
Fig 5.
A comparison of Ghana’s old (left) and newly proposed (right) ACZ maps.
The brown circular dots indicate the locations of GMet Synoptic stations whose data were used to calculate the growing season length.
Fig 6.
The wet and dry months and temperature distributions for synoptic stations within the Sudan Savannah zone.
Fig 7.
The wet and dry months and temperature distribution for synoptic stations within the Guinea Savannah zone.
Fig 8.
The wet and dry months and temperature distribution for synoptic stations within the Forest zone.
Fig 9.
The wet and dry months and temperature distribution for synoptic stations within the Transition zone.
Fig 10.
The wet and dry months and temperature distribution for synoptic stations within the Coastal zone.
Fig 11.
A map of Ghana showing patterns in mean annual total rainfall.
This map was produced from annual total rainfall climatology computed from GPCC data for the period 1981–2010.