Characterizing the Synoptic Expression of the Angola Low

The Angola low is a key feature of the southern Africa wet season atmosphere that influences precipitation across the continent. This paper uses ERA-Interim to show that the synoptic expression of the Angola low is a combination of dry heat lows and moist tropical low pressure systems. The Angola heat low and Angola tropical low composites are contrasted against similar lows observed in other continental tropical regions and found to be broadly comparable. The implications that the distinction between dry and moist events has for the interannual relationship among the Angola low, precipitation, and ENSO are examined. The tropical lows exhibit unusual semistationary behavior by lingering in the Angola region rather than traveling offshore. This behavior is proposed to be caused by an integrated sea breeze–anabatic wind that enhances (inhibits) cyclonic vorticity stretching and convection inland (near the coast). The combined effect of the heat lows and the anchored tropical lows creates the Angola low in the climatological average. By elucidating the mechanisms of the Angola low, this research improves the foundation of process-based evaluation of southern Africa present and future climate in CMIP and AMIP models.

Surface-to-mountaintop transport characterised by radon observations at the Jungfraujoch

Atmospheric composition measurements at Jungfraujoch are affected intermittently by thermally-driven (anabatic) mountain winds as well as by other vertical transport mechanisms. Using radon-222 observations, and a new analysis method, we quantify the land surface influence hour-by-hour and detect the presence of anabatic winds on a daily basis. During 2010–2011, anabatic winds occurred on roughly 40% of days, but only from April–September. Anabatic wind days were associated with warmer air temperatures over a large fraction of Europe and with a shift in airmass properties. Shifts were evident even when comparing the same radon concentrations, a proxy for land-surface influence. Aerosol washout, when quantified as a function of rain-rate using a radon normalisation technique, was also influenced by anabatic winds being more pronounced on non-anabatic days. Excluding the influence of anabatic winds, however, did not lead to a better definition of the unperturbed aerosol background than a definition based on radon alone, supporting the use of a radon threshold to identify periods with weak land-surface influence.