Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Authors
- Foreword by Federico Mayor, Director-General, UNESCO
- Preface
- Cartographic Credit
- Acknowledgements
- SECTION I INTRODUCTION
- SECTION II HUMID TROPICS SETTING
- 2 Climate and Rainfall Variability in the Humid Tropics
- 3 Operational Hydrology Problems in the Humid Tropics
- 4 The Problems of the Humid Tropics – Opportunities for Reassessment of Hydrological Methodology
- SECTION III REGIONAL HYDROLOGY
- SECTION IV PHYSICAL PROCESSES
- SECTION V PHYSICAL PROCESSES – HUMAN USES: THE INTERFACE
- SECTION VI MANAGEMENT ISSUES
- SECTION VII APPENDICES
- Place index
2 - Climate and Rainfall Variability in the Humid Tropics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Authors
- Foreword by Federico Mayor, Director-General, UNESCO
- Preface
- Cartographic Credit
- Acknowledgements
- SECTION I INTRODUCTION
- SECTION II HUMID TROPICS SETTING
- 2 Climate and Rainfall Variability in the Humid Tropics
- 3 Operational Hydrology Problems in the Humid Tropics
- 4 The Problems of the Humid Tropics – Opportunities for Reassessment of Hydrological Methodology
- SECTION III REGIONAL HYDROLOGY
- SECTION IV PHYSICAL PROCESSES
- SECTION V PHYSICAL PROCESSES – HUMAN USES: THE INTERFACE
- SECTION VI MANAGEMENT ISSUES
- SECTION VII APPENDICES
- Place index
Summary
ABSTRACT
Although the absolute variability of weather features in the tropics is less than that at higher latitudes, tropical weather and climate are rich in variation on time scales from the diurnal to decadal. Moreover, the climate of the tropics is closely linked to the behaviour of the upper oceans, which provide inertia to the climate system and which act as a moisture source for convective heating of the atmosphere. Latent heating from convection is a common factor in all aspects of variability in the tropical climate. The links between the major causes of variability are reviewed in the present work.
INTRODUCTION
Weather at the mid-latitudes is clearly associated with baroclinic fronts and other synoptic features that are controlled by the earth's rotation. It is, therefore, natural to assume that the tropics, where these Coriolis effects are small, should have weather with a distinctive lack of structure. Charney & Shukla (1981) quantify this effect by showing that the temperature variance increases away from the equator. This apparent lack of structure is supported by the observation that persistence is a useful weather forecast in the tropics. Indeed, operational short-range weather forecasting is generally no more accurate than persistence (Holland et al., 1987). But this result suggests that the basically quiescent weather is punctuated by intermittent and unpredictable events. In this paper, these events, their interconnections and progress on improving our understanding of them are reviewed.
One manifestation of the apparent lack of features in tropical weather is the observation that the temperature generally does not vary greatly, even following the passage of a weather system.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Hydrology and Water Management in the Humid TropicsHydrological Research Issues and Strategies for Water Management, pp. 13 - 33Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993
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