Impact of the Agulhas Current on southern Africa precipitation: a modelling study

The Agulhas Current (AC) creates a sharp temperature gradient with the surrounding ocean, leading to a large turbulent flux of moisture from ocean to atmosphere. We use two simulations of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to show the seasonal impact of the warm core of the AC on southern Africa precipitation. In one simulation the sea surface temperature (SST) of the AC is similar to satellite observations, while the second uses satellite SST observations spatially smoothed to reduce the temperature of the core of the AC by ~1.5°C. We show that decreasing the SST of the AC reduces the precipitation of the wettest seasons (austral summer and autumn) inland. Over the ocean, reducing the SST reduces precipitation, low-level wind convergence, SST and SLP Laplacian above the AC in all seasons, consistent with the pressure adjustment mechanism. Moreover, winter precipitation above the Current may be also related to increased latent flux. In summer and autumn, the AC SST reduction is also associated with decreased precipitation further inland (more than 1.5 mm/day), caused by an atmospheric circulation that decreases the horizontal moisture flux from the AC to South Africa. The reduction is also associated with higher geopotential height extending from the surface east and over the AC to the mid-troposphere over southeastern Africa. The westward tilted geopotential height is consistent with the linear response to shallow diabatic heating in midlatitudes. An identical mechanism occurs in spring but is weaker. Winter rainfall response is confined above the AC.

Numerical Simulation on Oasis Effect over Northwestern China

The characteristics of air temperature, circulation and energy budget of Jinta Oasis are simulated by WRF model, which is the weather research and forecast model of NCAR. The results show that the WRF model has good quality in simulating the diurnal characteristics of surface layer temperature, wind fields, net radiation, sensible heat flux and latent flux. In addition, the model initial fields were also modified by observations of soil temperature and moisture in order to improve the simulations in this study due to important roles of the soil moisture and temperature playing in affecting the cold island effect, the wet island effect properties and surface energy budget balance over the oasis in arid area. Then, the microclimate characteristics and local thermal circulation generated by inhomogeneous underlying surface over Jinta Oasis are analyzed.

ENERGY BALANCE OVER PRAIRIE GRASS

The energy balance over prairie grass was computed for four cloudless days using the Bowen ratio and the Fourier heat conduction equation. For the 3 advection-free days evaporation accounted for an average of 55% of daytime net radiation. Turbulent flux of heat and soil heat flux shared the remaining portion almost equally. Hourly evaporation can be related to net radiation by the empirical equation: E = 1.2 + 0.75 R cal cm−2 hr−1, where E is the evaporative flux and R the net radiation. The patterns of the soil heat flux was fairly steady from day to day. The relation between hourly flux of sensible heat and soil heat flux was linear on a daily basis. The linearity of the two fluxes when the hourly value for the whole period of investigation was pooled was poor. The proportion of net radiation used as latent flux and sensible flux showed large variability under advection conditions.