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Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer

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dc.contributor.author Cretat, J
dc.contributor.author Richard, Y
dc.contributor.author Pohl, B
dc.contributor.author Rouault, Marjolaine J
dc.contributor.author Reason, C
dc.contributor.author Fauchereau, N
dc.date.accessioned 2011-09-05T13:06:52Z
dc.date.available 2011-09-05T13:06:52Z
dc.date.issued 2010-12
dc.identifier.citation Cr´etat, J., Richard, Y., Pohl., B., et al. 2010. Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer. International Journal of Climatology, pp. 13pp en_US
dc.identifier.issn 0899-8418
dc.identifier.uri http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.2266/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5144
dc.description Copyright: 2010 Royal Meteorological Society. en_US
dc.description.abstract This paper investigates the influence of some modes of climate variability on the spatio-temporal rainfall variability over South Africa during the core of the rainy season, December to February (DJF). All analyses are based directly on the rainfall field instead of atmospheric processes and dynamics. An original agglomerative hierarchical clustering approach is used to classify daily rainfall patterns recorded at 5352 stations from DJF 1971 to DJF 1999. Five clusters are retained for analysis. Amongst them, one cluster looks most like the rainfall and circulation mean picture. Another one, representing 37% of the days, describes strong negative rainfall anomalies over South Africa resulting from a regional barotropic trough-ridge-trough wave structure and moisture divergence. These dry anomalies are more frequent in El Ni˜no years (with a 0.75 correlation between ENSO and the seasonal occurrences of that cluster) and are associated with a weakening and/or a regional shift of the Walker-type circulation and the subtropical jet stream. Three clusters, which describe, respectively, a decrease, an increase, and a conservation of the seasonal mean eastward rainfall gradient, are all associated with strong cyclonic moisture flux anomalies centred over Angola or northern Botswana and the anomalous convergence located over the largest positive rainfall anomalies, suggesting the importance of thermal low pressures. One of them is clearly associated with tropical temperate troughs. The rainfall patterns of these three clusters tend to propagate eastward, and their seasonal frequencies tend to increase in La Ni˜na years. en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Royal Meteorological Society en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries Workflow;7024
dc.subject Atmospheric dynamics en_US
dc.subject Daily rainfall patterns en_US
dc.subject ENSO en_US
dc.subject Hierarchical clustering en_US
dc.subject South Africa en_US
dc.title Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer en_US
dc.type Article en_US
dc.identifier.apacitation Cretat, J., Richard, Y., Pohl, B., Rouault, M. J., Reason, C., & Fauchereau, N. (2010). Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5144 en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitation Cretat, J, Y Richard, B Pohl, Marjolaine J Rouault, C Reason, and N Fauchereau "Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer." (2010) http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5144 en_ZA
dc.identifier.vancouvercitation Cretat J, Richard Y, Pohl B, Rouault MJ, Reason C, Fauchereau N. Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer. 2010; http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5144. en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Article AU - Cretat, J AU - Richard, Y AU - Pohl, B AU - Rouault, Marjolaine J AU - Reason, C AU - Fauchereau, N AB - This paper investigates the influence of some modes of climate variability on the spatio-temporal rainfall variability over South Africa during the core of the rainy season, December to February (DJF). All analyses are based directly on the rainfall field instead of atmospheric processes and dynamics. An original agglomerative hierarchical clustering approach is used to classify daily rainfall patterns recorded at 5352 stations from DJF 1971 to DJF 1999. Five clusters are retained for analysis. Amongst them, one cluster looks most like the rainfall and circulation mean picture. Another one, representing 37% of the days, describes strong negative rainfall anomalies over South Africa resulting from a regional barotropic trough-ridge-trough wave structure and moisture divergence. These dry anomalies are more frequent in El Ni˜no years (with a 0.75 correlation between ENSO and the seasonal occurrences of that cluster) and are associated with a weakening and/or a regional shift of the Walker-type circulation and the subtropical jet stream. Three clusters, which describe, respectively, a decrease, an increase, and a conservation of the seasonal mean eastward rainfall gradient, are all associated with strong cyclonic moisture flux anomalies centred over Angola or northern Botswana and the anomalous convergence located over the largest positive rainfall anomalies, suggesting the importance of thermal low pressures. One of them is clearly associated with tropical temperate troughs. The rainfall patterns of these three clusters tend to propagate eastward, and their seasonal frequencies tend to increase in La Ni˜na years. DA - 2010-12 DB - ResearchSpace DP - CSIR KW - Atmospheric dynamics KW - Daily rainfall patterns KW - ENSO KW - Hierarchical clustering KW - South Africa LK - https://researchspace.csir.co.za PY - 2010 SM - 0899-8418 T1 - Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer TI - Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5144 ER - en_ZA


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