The African Easterly Waves over northern South America

Spatiotemporal conditions that rule hydro-climatology over northern South America and the Caribbean Sea are influenced by a large amount of phenomena taking place at different timescales, due to the huge solar radiation income throughout the year as a result of their geographical location. Characterizing the activity of the AEWs over northern South America and the Caribbean is an imperative work to do in order to improve our understanding of the tropical atmospheric dynamics involved in hydrology and climate features over the region. The latter regulates the availability of very important resources such as water, which represents an important resource for economic activities and social dynamics of the populations that occupy these regions. Furthermore, AEWs activity plays an important role on air quality characteristics during the boreal summer, as a consequence of this disturbances connections with dust transport. 

In order to approach an adequate characterization of the AEWs activity over northern South America and the Caribbean Sea, this work intends to address the relationship between these atmospheric perturbations and the occurrence or inhibition of precipitation, as well as possible connections with dust transport, when the AEW’s oscillations take place over northern South America and the Caribbean region. In particular, relative vorticity and outgoing long-wave radiation are used to identify the AEW’s activity during the 1983-2013 period, together with daily precipitation anomalies, surface divergence, vertical integrated moisture flux, and Aerosol Optical Depth, in order to understand how the passage of AEWs could influence meteorological interactions in the region.