Articles | Volume 10, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-847-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-847-2019
Research article
 | 
05 Dec 2019
Research article |  | 05 Dec 2019

Analysis of the position and strength of westerlies and trades with implications for Agulhas leakage and South Benguela upwelling

Nele Tim, Eduardo Zorita, Kay-Christian Emeis, Franziska U. Schwarzkopf, Arne Biastoch, and Birgit Hünicke

Data sets

The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.derived.surfaceflux.html) E. Kalnay, M. Kanamitsu, R. Kistler, W. Collins, D. Deaven, L. Gandin, M. Iredell, S. Saha, G. White, J. Woollen, Y. Zhu, M. Chelliah, W. Ebisuzaki, W. Higgins, J. Janowiak, K. C. Mo, C. Ropelewski, J. Wang, A. Leetmaa, R. Reynolds, R. Jenne, and D. Joseph https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077<0437:tnyrp>2.0.co;2

The JRA-55 Reanalysis: General Specifications and Basic Characteristics (https://rda.ucar.edu) S. Kobayashi, Y. Ota, Y. Harada, A. Ebita, M. Moriya, H. Onoda, K. Onogi, H. Kamahori, C. Kobayashi, H. Endo, K. Miyaoka, and K. Takahashi https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2015-001

The global climatology of an interannually varying air-sea flux data set (https://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov/nomads/forms/core/COREv2/CIAF_v2.html) W. Large and S. Yeager https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-008-0441-3

ERA-20C: An Atmospheric Reanalysis of the Twentieth Century (https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era-20c) P. Poli, H. Hersbach, D. P. Dee, P. Berrisford, A. J. Simmons, F. Vitart, P. Laloyaux, D. G. H. Tan, C. Peubey, J.-N. Thépaut, Y. Trémolet, E. V. Hólm, M. Bonavita, L. Isaksen, and M. Fisher https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0556.1

Optimal Spectral Nudging for Global Dynamical Downscaling (https://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/ui/cerasearch/) M. Schubert-Frisius, F. Feser, H. Von Storch, and S. Rast https://doi.org/10.1175/mwr-d-16-0036.1

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Short summary
Our study reveals that the latitudinal position and intensity of Southern Hemisphere trades and westerlies are correlated. In the last decades the westerlies have shifted poleward and intensified. Furthermore, the latitudinal shifts and intensity of the trades and westerlies impact the sea surface temperatures around southern Africa and in the South Benguela upwelling region. The future development of wind stress depends on the strength of greenhouse gas forcing.
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