High resolution (0.11°) regional climate simulations were carried out by the researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (KIT/IMK-IFU) as part of the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Project. One of the goals of the WASCAL project is to provide the best accuracy in regional climate simulations over the entire West Africa region for a large proportion of the 21st century. The regional climate model employed in the project was the COSMO-CLM (COnsortium for Small-scale MOdelling in CLimate Model) 
version 4.8_clm19 forced by one global circulation model (GCM), the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-LR, Stevens et al. 2013) under the Representative Concentrative Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5). Further control runs with ERA-Interim reanalysis products (Dee et al. 2011) were also used for model verification. Therefore, daily outputs of near-surface maximum temperature, obtained from the hourly simulations of CCLMv4.8.19, driven by MPI-ESM-LR, are hereby presented.

High resolution (12km) regional climate simulations were carried out by the researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (KIT/IMK-IFU) as part of the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Project. One of the goals of the WASCAL project is to provide the best accuracy in regional climate simulations over the entire West Africa region for a large proportion of the 21st century. The regional climate model employed in the project was the Weather Research and Forecasting Model version 3.5.1 (WRFv3.5.1) forced by three global circulation models (GCMs) under the Representative Concentrative Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5). The forcing GCMs are: the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-MR, Stevens et al. 2013), the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Earth System Model (GFDL-ESM2M, Dunne et al. 2012), and the Hadley Global Environment Model (HadGEM2-ES, Collins et al. 2011). Further control runs with ERA-Interim reanalysis products (Dee et al. 2011) were also carried out for model verification and bias correction. Therefore, the daily outputs of near-surface dew point temperature, obtained from the 3-hourly simulations of WRFv3.5.1, driven by HadGEM2-ES, are hereby presented.

High resolution (12km) regional climate simulations were carried out by the researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (KIT/IMK-IFU) as part of the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Project. One of the goals of the WASCAL project is to provide the best accuracy in regional climate simulations over the entire West Africa region for a large proportion of the 21st century. The regional climate model employed in the project was the Weather Research and Forecasting Model version 3.5.1 (WRFv3.5.1) forced by three global circulation models (GCMs) under the Representative Concentrative Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5). The forcing GCMs are: the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-MR, Stevens et al. 2013), the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Earth System Model (GFDL-ESM2M, Dunne et al. 2012), and the Hadley Global Environment Model (HadGEM2-ES, Collins et al. 2011). Further control runs with ERA-Interim reanalysis products (Dee et al. 2011) were also carried out for model verification and bias correction. Therefore, de-accumulated daily outputs of TOA incident shortwave radiation, obtained from the 3-hourly simulations of WRFv3.5.1, driven by GFDL-ESM2M, are hereby presented.

High resolution (12km) regional climate simulations were carried out by the researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (KIT/IMK-IFU) as part of the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Project. One of the goals of the WASCAL project is to provide the best accuracy in regional climate simulations over the entire West Africa region for a large proportion of the 21st century. The regional climate model employed in the project was the Weather Research and Forecasting Model version 3.5.1 (WRFv3.5.1) forced by three global circulation models (GCMs) under the Representative Concentrative Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5). The forcing GCMs are: the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-MR, Stevens et al. 2013), the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Earth System Model (GFDL-ESM2M, Dunne et al. 2012), and the Hadley Global Environment Model (HadGEM2-ES, Collins et al. 2011). Further control runs with ERA-Interim reanalysis products (Dee et al. 2011) were also carried out for model verification and bias correction. Therefore, daily outputs of near-surface air temperature, obtained from the 3-hourly simulations of WRFv3.5.1, driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis, are hereby presented.

High resolution (12km) regional climate simulations were carried out by the researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (KIT/IMK-IFU) as part of the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Project. One of the goals of the WASCAL project is to provide the best accuracy in regional climate simulations over the entire West Africa region for a large proportion of the 21st century. The regional climate model employed in the project was the Weather Research and Forecasting Model version 3.5.1 (WRFv3.5.1) forced by three global circulation models (GCMs) under the Representative Concentrative Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5). The forcing GCMs are: the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-MR, Stevens et al. 2013), the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Earth System Model (GFDL-ESM2M, Dunne et al. 2012), and the Hadley Global Environment Model (HadGEM2-ES, Collins et al. 2011). Further control runs with ERA-Interim reanalysis products (Dee et al. 2011) were also carried out for model verification and bias correction. Therefore, the daily outputs of near-surface air temperature, obtained from the 3-hourly simulations of WRFv3.5.1, driven by GFDL-ESM2M, are hereby presented.

High resolution (12km) regional climate simulations were carried out by the researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (KIT/IMK-IFU) as part of the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Project. One of the goals of the WASCAL project is to provide the best accuracy in regional climate simulations over the entire West Africa region for a large proportion of the 21st century. The regional climate model employed in the project was the Weather Research and Forecasting Model version 3.5.1 (WRFv3.5.1) forced by three global circulation models (GCMs) under the Representative Concentrative Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5). The forcing GCMs are: the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-MR, Stevens et al. 2013), the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Earth System Model (GFDL-ESM2M, Dunne et al. 2012), and the Hadley Global Environment Model (HadGEM2-ES, Collins et al. 2011). Further control runs with ERA-Interim reanalysis products (Dee et al. 2011) were also carried out for model verification and bias correction. Therefore, de-accumulated daily outputs of surface upwelling longwave radiation, obtained from the 3-hourly simulations of WRFv3.5.1, driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis, are hereby presented.

High resolution (12km) regional climate simulations were carried out by the researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (KIT/IMK-IFU) as part of the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Project. One of the goals of the WASCAL project is to provide the best accuracy in regional climate simulations over the entire West Africa region for a large proportion of the 21st century. The regional climate model employed in the project was the Weather Research and Forecasting Model version 3.5.1 (WRFv3.5.1) forced by three global circulation models (GCMs) under the Representative Concentrative Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5). The forcing GCMs are: the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-MR, Stevens et al. 2013), the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Earth System Model (GFDL-ESM2M, Dunne et al. 2012), and the Hadley Global Environment Model (HadGEM2-ES, Collins et al. 2011). Further control runs with ERA-Interim reanalysis products (Dee et al. 2011) were also carried out for model verification and bias correction. Therefore, de-accumulated daily outputs of deaccumulated surface upwelling shortwave radiation, obtained from the 3-hourly simulations of WRFv3.5.1, driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis, are hereby presented.

High resolution (12km) regional climate simulations were carried out by the researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (KIT/IMK-IFU) as part of the West Africa Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Project. One of the goals of the WASCAL project is to provide the best accuracy in regional climate simulations over the entire West Africa region for a large proportion of the 21st century. The regional climate model employed in the project was the Weather Research and Forecasting Model version 3.5.1 (WRFv3.5.1) forced by three global circulation models (GCMs) under the Representative Concentrative Pathways 4.5 (RCP 4.5). The forcing GCMs are: the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM-MR, Stevens et al. 2013), the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Earth System Model (GFDL-ESM2M, Dunne et al. 2012), and the Hadley Global Environment Model (HadGEM2-ES, Collins et al. 2011). Further control runs with ERA-Interim reanalysis products (Dee et al. 2011) were also carried out for model verification and bias correction. Therefore, de-accumulated daily outputs of TOA outgoing longwave radiation, obtained from the 3-hourly simulations of WRFv3.5.1, driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis, are hereby presented.

Recording local ecological knowledge (LEK) is a useful approach to understanding interactions of the complex social-ecological systems. In spite of the recent growing interest in LEK studies on the effects of climate and land use changes, livestock mobility decisions and other aspects of agro-pastoral systems, LEK on forage plants has still been vastly under-documented in the West African savannas. Using a study area ranging from northern Ghana to central Burkina Faso, we thus aimed at exploring how aridity and socio-demographic factors drive the distributional patterns of forage-related LEK among its holders. With stratified random sampling, we elicited LEK among 450 informants in 15 villages (seven in Ghana and eight in Burkina Faso) via free list tasks coupled with ethnobotanical walks and direct field observations. We performed generalized linear mixed-effects models (aridity- and ethnicity-based models) and robust model selection procedures. Our findings revealed that LEK for woody and herbaceous forage plants was strongly influenced by the ethnicity-based model, while aridity-based model performed better for LEK on overall forage resources and crop-related forage plants. We also found that climatic aridity had negative effect on the forage-related LEK across gender and age groups, while agro- and floristic diversity had positive effect on the body of LEK. About 135 species belonging to 95 genera and 52 families were cited. Our findings shed more light on how ethnicity and environmental harshness can markedly shape the body of LEK in the face of global climate change. Better understanding of such a place-based knowledge system is relevant for sustainable forage plants utilization and livestock production.