The experiment aims to investigate how the representation of convection influences the West African Monsoon during the mid-Holocene.

Atmospheric and SST input data originate from the MPI-ESM Holocene simulations reflecting Holocene condition.

External Parameters (surface condition) were adjusted to reflect mid-Holocene vegetation conditions. We prescribe an idealized, denser vegetation cover based on the simulated desert fraction (1-vegetation fraction) of the transient mid-Holocene MPI-ESM simulations (Dallmeyer et al., 2020).

We use the ICON (ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic) model framework version 2.5.0 (see Zängl et al. (2014) for more details).

The provided data covers one simulation from June to October (JJASO) for the year 7024 before present (BP) with the year 2000 as the reference year.

The time axes of the NetCDF files reflect the model year which is based on the time axes of the MPI-ESM slo0021a Holocene simulations. The artificial model year 1001 in slo0021a refers to the year 8000 BP. Therefore, the model year 1978 refers to the year 7024 BP.

The experiment compares a 5km horizontal resolution, deep convection resolving simulation with a 40km-horizontal resolution, parameterized convection simulation.

The 40km-domain (DOM01) covers a range from 70.5°W - 99.5°E; 49°S - 59°N

The 5km-domain (DOM04) covers a range from 37°W - 53°E; 0°N - 40°N

The dataset provides daily mean values on the triangular ICON grid.

The datasets provide atmospheric (_atm_ 3D), surface (_sfc_ 2D) and precipitation ( _prec_ 2D) and forcing (extpar_) data and the following variables:

w_so, lhfl_s, shfl_s, runoff_s, runoff_g, rain_con_rate, rain_gsp_rate, geopot, temp, rh, qv, u, v, w, clc

Precipitation and forcing data are combined into 2 data files for DOM01 and DOM04. Surface data are combined into 2 data files for DOM01.

The dataset with the suffix "_constSM_sep_" contains the data for the constant soil moisture simulations. In these simulations we prescribe the same constant soil moisture field, representing 1st September-soil moisture conditions, both for the 40km-P (DOM01) and the 5km-E (DOM04) simulations.

The DS ("Dry Sahara") simulations refer to the simulations where we prescribe present-day land surface cover - the Sahara remains a desert.

The GS ("Green Sahara") simulations represent idealized mid-Holocene conditions where we prescribe a higher vegetation cover that also extend further north. The Sahara reflects more savannah-like vegetation.