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The interannual variability of the frontal activity over the western Southern Hemisphere and its linkage with the variability of the atmospheric circulation and precipitation over southern South America is studied. The analysis is focused on the austral winter and spring seasons. The frontal activity is represented by an index defined as the product between the horizontal gradient of temperature and the relative vorticity at 850 hPa (FI) and is computed from the ERA Interim and NCEP2 reanalysis. For the two seasons the main mode of variability of FI, as depicted by the first Empirical Orthogonal Function, presents centres of action located in the southern part of the western Southern Hemisphere. This pattern is present in the two reanalysis datasets. The correlation coefficients between the principal component of the leading mode of FI and the two main modes of the 500 hPa geopotential height indicate that both the ENSO-mode and the SAM modulate the leading pattern of FI in winter while during the spring season the ENSO-mode controls the FI variability. The variability of the FI has a robust influence on the interannual variability of precipitation over southern South America and adjacent oceans. Over the continent, it was found that the pattern of precipitation anomalies associated with the variability of the FI depicts significant signals over southeastern South America (SESA), centre and south of Chile for winter and over SESA and southeastern Brazil for spring and agrees with the pattern of the leading mode of precipitation variability over southern South America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intraseasonal variability of the frontal activity and its connection with the variability of the atmospheric circulation and precipitation in the Southern Hemisphere is studied. The frontal activity is defined as the relative vorticity times the local temperature gradient. A band-pass filter was applied to retain the intraseasonal timescales. An empirical orthogonal function analysis was applied to the filtered frontal activity anomalies. The two main modes show positive and negative centers located mainly over the southern Pacific Ocean and South American sector and are in quadrature with each other. A similar pattern was found when the main modes of intraseasonal variability of the 500 hPa geopotential height were projected on the frontal activity, suggesting that the variability of fronts are influenced by the variability of the large scale atmospheric circulation. Moreover, the precipitation anomalies projected on the main modes of both frontal activity and 500 hPa geopotential height show similar structures, especially over the southern Pacific Ocean and South America, which may indicate that the variability of fronts controls the variability of precipitation. The lagged regression of the time series of the frontal activity areally-averaged over one of the centers of action against the frontal activity anomaly field shows at lags −8 and 8 a similar pattern, suggesting a period of around 17 days for each mode. Moreover, lagged regression between times series of frontal activity and precipitation anomalies reveals an opposite pattern between southeastern South America and southern Chile, being precipitation anomalies over these two regions anti-correlated due to the frontal activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A sensitivity study to perturbations in the initial conditions in a simulated evolution of a baroclinic wave using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional model is discussed in this paper. With the goal of analysing the impacts of these perturbations in the context of weather forecast and also with the aim of exploring the presence of preferred directions of growth in the errors, two cases were analysed: an ideal experiment using a case study available from the WRF set-up and a simulation of a real evolution of a mid-latitude cyclone over Southeastern South America (SESA) and the Atlantic Ocean. In the ideal experiment two spatial structures were considered for the perturbations, random and sinusoidal noise, while for the real experiment only sinusoidal structures were considered. These perturbations were then applied to the initial conditions of temperature and zonal wind. Additionally, simulations with an increment in atmospheric moisture were performed for the real experiment. It was found in both real and ideal cases that the temperature errors tend to organize in a preferable direction of growth, although this direction changes depending on the case considered. Results also show that perturbations in temperature field lead to larger error than perturbing the zonal wind. Finally, the increment of moisture did not produce significant changes in the distribution or intensity of the errors in the real case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates a present climate simulation over southern South America performed with the Meteorological Research Institute/Japanese Meteorological Agency (MRI/JMA) high resolution global model. Main patterns of low and upper-level atmospheric circulation were analysed in a 25-year simulation as well as climate means, interannual variability, trends and bias of temperature and precipitation. The model is able to reproduce the main atmospheric circulation patterns and mean surface variables, although some deficiencies were found such as an overestimation of temperature over central Argentina in most of seasons, an overestimation of austral winter precipitation over northeastern and central Argentina, an underestimation of precipitation in all the seasons over southeast of Brazil, an underestimation of the amplitude of the annual cycle temperature in some regions and an overestimation of the amplitude of the annual cycle of precipitation over mountainous areas. Model interannual variability was also assessed. In general, temperature variability is overestimated, whereas precipitation is underestimated. The spatial structure of the year-to-year variability of precipitation is correctly simulated by the model, although some patterns were misplaced. Most of regions present a cold seasonal bias reaching values of − 2 °C in some regions. It was found that precipitation biases are between 3 and − 1 mm day−1. In some regions and seasons observed and simulated temperature trends coincide, as in austral summer or spring, where the model and the observations show positive trends in most of regions. However, there is no agreement between observed and simulated precipitation trends in almost all the regions and seasons. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]