INTERANNUAL TEMPERATURE VARIABILITY AND ASSOCIATED SYNOPTIC CLIMATOLOGY AT CAPE TOWN
✍ Scribed by LEVEY, KEVIN M.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 808 KB
- Volume
- 16
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0899-8418
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✦ Synopsis
Interannual temperature variability at Cape Town over the period 1877-1991 is investigated. A quasi-periodicity of 8-16 years is evident. The regional structure of warm and cold years is described using lower and upper level wind, outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), and sea-surface temperature (SST). Anomalously warm (cold) periods at Cape Town are associated with the persistence of weaker (stronger) westerlies, which are located further polewards (equatorwards) than usual. The OLR fields indicate a poleward shift of zonal westerly cloud bands in warm years coincident with a tongue of positive SST anomalies to the south of Cape Town. The positioning of standing waves in the mid-latitude westerlies is a determinant of thermal advection and appear to adjust to underlying SST fields.