Spatio-Temporal Variability and Predictability of Relative Humidity Over West African Monsoon Region
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| Figure 7: Retreat south (a), middle (b), and north (c) cluster correlation maps with surface temperature (left), mean sea-level pressure (middle), 500 – 800mb averaged winds (right), and global sea-surface temperature (bottom).
Links to Large-Scale Climate In order to understand the drivers of year-to-year variability of the relative humidity, the cluster indices were correlated with large-scale climate fields of the concurrent period. In particular, we selected four variables to correlate – surface temperature, mean sea level pressure, 500-800mb average winds and global SST. The sea level pressure and average winds were selected to capture the links to atmospheric circulation such as the jet; while the surface temperatures and SSTs are for large-scale oceanic features such as ENSO, Atlantic equatorial patterns etc. Figure 6 shows the correlations with each of these the variables’ fields for the three onset period clustersclusters during the onset period. In the onset period, all three clusters have positive correlation with the Sahara desert surface temperature, and negative correlation with the Guinea Coast surface temperature. This negative correlation extends to Gulf of Guinea and South Atlantic sea-surface temperatures. This dipole pattern of positive correlation over land coupled with negative correlation to the south and over the ocean is indicative of a strong land-ocean thermal gradient, a key component of the monsoon. The correlation pattern with sea level pressure is opposite and consistent – over the warmer land in of the Sahara the approximate location of West African Heat Low, the pressure is low leading to a negative correlation, vice-versawith the opposite holding true to the south and over the oceanalong on the Guinea Coast. With SSTs a diploe dipole pattern is apparent in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, – with positive correlation in the northern tropical Atlantic and negative to the south. This dipole is well known as influencing the rainfall over North Eastern Brazil and Western Africa (xxx refs xx). In the Pacific there is a weak positive correlation in the central and eastern tropical Pacific and a weak negative correlation in the west, – reminiscent of the ENSO pattern. The correlation patterns are remarkably similar for the middle and northern southern cluster (Figures 6). Retreat period correlations are shown in Figure 7. For the southern clusterall clusters, the land temperature correlations show positive correlation over western Africa similar to that in the onset period (Figure 6), but a negative correlation to the south that is much weaker. The correlations with SLP also mirror this (Figure 6). The correlation pattern with 500-800mb winds shows a stronger negative correlation over the region of the African Easterly Jet, also the location of the ITCZ (Figure 7). This is stronger and coherent than its counterpart in the onset period (Figure 6). This is due to the fact the most of the activity is on the land as the monsoon period starts to wind down. The correlation with SST is much weaker than that observed during onset – this is consistent with the fact that during the end of the monsoon season the tropical Atlantic SST gradient is much diminished as the ITCZ is in the northern hemisphere and on its way south – and the gradient gets established in fall. These patterns are also seen in the other two clusters (Figure 7).  Download 4.12 Mb. Share with your friends:
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