Marine climatology of the tropical Americas

Abstract

Surface circulation and climate in the sea areas surrounding the American Continents are discussed on the basis of ship observations for the period 1911–1970 compiled with a one degree latitude-longitude square spatial resolution. Charts depict sub-synoptic scale features in considerable detail, such as the wintertime intrusions of cold dry air from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of the Mexican-Central American land bridge at topographically favoured locations, manifesting themselves in plumes of high wind speed, anticyclonic vorticity, and low sea surface temperature far into the open Pacific. Double peaks in the rainy season are indicated for the Western Caribbean and the easternmost Pacific off the Central American coast, with the September/October maximum most dominant. Among the more significant large-scale features are the near-equatorial trough of low pressure, a kinematic axis, and zonally oriented bands of maximal cloudiness and precipitation frequency, with a seasonal migration of this ensemble from a most equatorward position in Northern winter farther northward during summer. The near-equatorial kinematic axis has the characteristics of a confluence zone over the Western Atlantic, whereas over the Eastern Pacific it is a discontinuity between the Southwesterly flow from the Southern hemisphere and the Northeast Trades. Most intense development is reached during Northern summer. The surface flow discontinuity is broadly embedded in the baric trough. The bands of maximal convergence, cloudiness and precipitation frequency stay well equatorward of the surface flow discontinuity in the Eastern Pacific throughout the year, whereas over the Western Atlantic they switch to the North of the kinematic axis during Northern winter.