Further observational evidence of Hadley cell widening in the southern hemisphere, Geophys

Abstract Various observational and modeling studies have shown that the Hadley cell (HC) has widened during the past few decades. Here we present further observational evidence of the widening of the HC in the Southern Hemisphere by tracking the location of the subtropical ridge. A robust and signif...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jung Choi, Seok-Woo Son, Jian Lu, Seung-Ki Min
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1074.5082
http://wxmaps.org/jianlu/Choi_etal_GRL2014.pdf
Description
Summary:Abstract Various observational and modeling studies have shown that the Hadley cell (HC) has widened during the past few decades. Here we present further observational evidence of the widening of the HC in the Southern Hemisphere by tracking the location of the subtropical ridge. A robust and significant poleward shift of the southern edge of the HC has been observed during the austral summer over the past three decades with a shift of 0.22°per decade between 1980 and 2012, primarily from the South Atlantic Ocean eastward to Australia. In other seasons, significant changes in the southern edge of the HC have not been observed, with a discernable regional trend having only occurred in limited regions. The comparison of these results with those derived from reanalysis data and possible causes for the summer HC expansion in the Southern Hemisphere are briefly discussed.