From Amazonia to southern Africa: atmospheric moisture transport through low‐level jets and atmospheric rivers

Abstract A Lagrangian analysis is applied to identify the main moisture source areas associated with atmospheric rivers (ARs) making landfall along the west coast of South Africa during the extended austral winter months from 1980 to 2014. The results show that areas that provide the anomalous uptak...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: Ramos, Alexandre M., Blamey, Ross C., Algarra, Iago, Nieto, Raquel, Gimeno, Luis, Tomé, Ricardo, Reason, Chris J.C., Trigo, Ricardo M.
Other Authors: Natural Environment Research Council, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Water Research Commission, Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria, Xunta de Galicia
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2018
Subjects:
History and Philosophy of Science
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
General Neuroscience
Austral
Chaco
South Atlantic Ocean
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13960
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fnyas.13960
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/nyas.13960
Description
Summary:Abstract A Lagrangian analysis is applied to identify the main moisture source areas associated with atmospheric rivers (ARs) making landfall along the west coast of South Africa during the extended austral winter months from 1980 to 2014. The results show that areas that provide the anomalous uptake of moisture can be categorized into four regions: (1) the South Atlantic Ocean between 10°S and 30°S, (2) a clear local maximum in the eastern South Atlantic, (3) a continental source of anomalous uptake to the north of the Western Cape, and (4) over South America at a distance of more than 7000 km from the target region. It emerges that the South American moisture source can be linked to a particular phase of the South American low‐level jet, known as a no Chaco jet event (NCJE), which transports moisture to the western and central South Atlantic basin. Concisely, we provide strong evidence that the two margins of the South Atlantic Ocean appear connected by two meteorological structures, with the NCJE playing a key role of transporting moisture from South America to the western and central South Atlantic basin, feeding the AR that transports some of the moisture to the west coast of South Africa.

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