The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners.
As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
i
The Modulation of Daily Southern Africa Precipitation by El Niño–Southern Oscillation across the Summertime Wet Season
-
2021
-
-
Source: Journal of Climate, 34(3), 1115-1134.
Details:
-
Journal Title:Journal of Climate
-
Personal Author:
-
NOAA Program & Office:
-
Description:The spatiotemporal evolution of daily southern Africa precipitation characteristics, and associated atmospheric circulation, related to El Niño and La Niña is examined across the region’s November–April wet season. Precipitation characteristics are examined in terms of monthly changes in daily average precipitation, the number of precipitation days, and the number of heavy precipitation days in three independently constructed estimates of observed precipitation during 1983–2018. Mechanisms related to precipitation changes, including contributions from mass divergence, water vapor transports, and transient eddies, are diagnosed using the atmospheric moisture budget based on the ERA5 reanalysis. El Niño is related to precipitation anomalies that build during December–March, the core of the rainy season, culminating in significantly below average values stretching across a semiarid region from central Mozambique to southeastern Angola. A broad anticyclone centered over Botswana drives these precipitation anomalies primarily through anomalous mass divergence, with moisture advection and transient eddies playing secondary roles. La Niña is related to significantly above average daily precipitation characteristics over all Africa south of 20°S in February and much less so during the other five months. February precipitation anomalies are primarily driven through mass divergence due to a strong anomalous cyclonic circulation, whereas a similar circulation is more diffuse during the other months. The spatiotemporal evolutions of anomalies in daily precipitation characteristics across southern Africa related to El Niño and La Niña are not equal and opposite. The robustness of an asymmetric evolution, which could have implications for subseasonal forecasts, needs to be confirmed with analysis of additional empirical data and established with climate model experimentation.
-
Keywords:
-
Source:Journal of Climate, 34(3), 1115-1134.
-
DOI:
-
Document Type:
-
Place as Subject:
-
Rights Information:Other
-
Compliance:Submitted
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
[PDF-15.13 MB]
