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Zonda downslope winds in the central Andes of South America in a 20-year climate simulation with the Eta model

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Abstract

The Zonda wind is a local version of the alpine foehn in the central Andes Mountains in South America. It blows on the eastern slopes and produces an extremely warm and dry condition in Argentina. In this study, the occurrence of Zonda wind events during a 20-year simulation from the regional Eta model is analyzed and results are compared to previous studies of Zonda wind events based on weather observations. We define a set of parameters to account for the zonal pressure gradient across the mountain, vertical movement, and air humidity typical of Zonda wind events. These parameters are applied to characterize Zonda wind events in model run and to classify them as surface-level or high-level episodes. The resulting annual distribution of Zonda occurrences based on composite analyses shows a preference for winter and spring with rare occurrences during summer. For the surface-level Zonda wind events, the highest frequency occurs during spring. Whereas surface-level Zonda wind episodes more commonly initiate in the afternoon, high-level Zonda wind events show no preference for a given initiation time. Our results are mostly in agreement with previous observational results.

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Acknowledgments

This study was part of a research project performed at the Centro de Previsão do Tempo e Estudos Climáticos (CPTEC-INPE) of Brazil during the first author’s visit. We are very grateful to Prof. Fedor Mesinger for valuable comments and suggestions which contributed to this work. This research was partially supported by grant PIP 2013-2015 GI11220120100586 from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and by CNPq grants p308035/2013-5, 457874/2014-7, and 400792/2012-5.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Pablo L. Antico

  2. Departamento de Ciencias de la Atmósfera y los Océanos, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Intendente Güiraldes 2160, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EGA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Pablo L. Antico

  3. Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/n, B1900FWA, La Plata, Argentina

    Pablo L. Antico

  4. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), Rod. Pres. Dutra, km 39, Cachoeira Paulista, SP, CEP 12630-000, Brazil

    Sin Chan Chou

  5. Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais (CEMADEN), Rodovia Dutra, km 39, Cachoeira Paulista, SP, CEP 12630-000, Brazil

    Caroline Mourão

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  1. Pablo L. Antico
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  2. Sin Chan Chou
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  3. Caroline Mourão
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Correspondence to Pablo L. Antico.

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Antico, P.L., Chou, S.C. & Mourão, C. Zonda downslope winds in the central Andes of South America in a 20-year climate simulation with the Eta model. Theor Appl Climatol 128, 291–299 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1709-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1709-2

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