Abstract
Abstract The Jordan mean tropical sounding has provided a benchmark for representing the climatology of the tropical North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea since 1958. However, recent studies of the Saharan air layer (SAL) have suggested that the tropical atmosphere in these oceanic regions may contain two distinct soundings (SAL and non-SAL) with differing thermodynamic and kinematic structures and that a single mean sounding like Jordan’s does not effectively represent these differences. This work addresses this possibility by examining over 750 rawinsondes from the tropical North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea during the 2002 hurricane season. It was found that a two-peak bimodal moisture distribution (dry SAL and moist non-SAL) exists in this region and that the Jordan sounding does not represent either distribution particularly well. Additionally, SAL soundings exhibited higher values of geopotential height, unique temperature profiles, and stronger winds (with an enhanced easterly component) compared to the moist tropical non-SAL soundings. The results of this work suggest that the Jordan mean tropical sounding may need to be updated to provide a more robust depiction of the thermodynamics and kinematics that exist in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea during the hurricane season.
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