Throughout the country, weathering, leaching, and the formation of laterite hardpans (hard, impervious layers composed chiefly of iron and aluminum oxides cemented by relatively insoluble materials) by capillary movement (the movement of water containing mineral salts to the surface) and evaporation are common processes that vary in importance according to the characteristics of each locality. Leaching is more pronounced in the wet south, while the formation of laterite is more widespread in the drier north. In general, most soils are formed in place from parent rock material that has been subjected to prolonged erosion and consequently has limited fertility.

In the forest zone the soils are mostly lateritic. They are subdivided into relatively fertile and less-acidic ochrosols (red, brown, and yellow-brown, relatively well-drained soils) in areas of moderate precipitation and into more-acidic and less-fertile oxisols in the extreme southwest, where annual precipitation exceeds 65 inches (1,650 mm). Ochrosols occur over considerable areas in the coastal and northern savanna zones. As in the forest zone, they are the best soils for agriculture.

The coastal savanna zone has an abundance of soil types, including tropical black earths, tropical gray earths, acid vleisols, and sodium vleisols. Except for the tropical black earths, known locally as Akuse clays, most of these soils are of little importance agriculturally. The Akuse clays fill a broad zone across the coastal savanna plains; although heavy and intractable, they respond well to cropping under irrigation and mechanical cultivation.

Because of their intrinsic poverty in nutrients, most of the soils are heavily dependent upon the humus supplied by the vegetation cover. There is thus a delicate balance between vegetation and soil fertility, which may be upset by uncontrolled burning or overuse.

Climate

Ghana’s climate, like that of the rest of the Guinea Coast, is determined largely by the interplay of two air masses: a hot, dry continental air mass that forms over the Sahara and a warm, humid maritime tropical air mass that forms over the South Atlantic. Both air masses move toward the Equator with their hemispheric winds and meet at the Guinea Coast for several months each year. Continental air moves southward with the northeast trade winds, known in western Africa as the harmattan, and maritime tropical air moves northward with the southwest trades. The zone where these air masses converge is characterized by seasonal line squall precipitation. The convergence zone itself oscillates north and south, following the seasonal movements of the overhead sun and the thermal equator; it reaches its most northerly position in the central Sahara, about latitude 21° N, in August, and its most southerly position about 7° N, a few miles north of the Ghana coastline, in January. Rains occur when the dominant air mass is maritime tropical, and drought prevails when continental air and the harmattan dominate.

In the savanna country north of the Kwahu Plateau, there are two seasons—a dry season from November to March, with hot days and cool nights under clear skies, and a wet season that reaches its peak in August and September. The mean annual precipitation is between 40 and 55 inches (1,020 and 1,400 mm), but there is a marked moisture deficit because of the long, intensely dry season that follows. In the southern forest country, where the annual mean precipitation from north to south has a range of about 50 to 86 inches (1,270 to 2,180 mm), there are two rainy seasons—one from April to July and a lesser one from September to November—and two relatively dry periods that occur during the harmattan season, from December to February, and in August, which is a cool, misty month along the coast. In the Accra Plains, anomalously low annual mean precipitation figures vary from 40 inches (1,000 mm) to less than 30 inches (760 mm), and the precipitation variability and the vegetation bear close resemblance to conditions in the northern savanna zone.

Temperatures show much more regional uniformity. The annual mean temperature is from 78 to 84 °F (26 to 29 °C) and the daily range only some 10 to 15 °F (6 to 8 °C) along the coast and some 13 to 30 °F (7 to 17 °C) in the north. Average relative humidities range from nearly 100 percent in the south to 65 percent in the north, although, during the harmattan season, figures as low as 12 percent have been recorded in the north and around Accra. Enervating conditions produced locally by the combination of high temperatures and high humidities are moderated by altitude in the higher parts and by land and sea breezes along the coast. In general, the hottest months are February and March, just before the rains, and the lowest temperatures occur in January or—along the coast—in August.