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Determination of the onset dates of the rainy season in central Amazon with equatorially antisymmetric outgoing longwave radiation

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Abstract

The present work provides a new methodology to determine onset dates of the rainy season (ONR) in central Amazon (CAM) using the antisymmetric in relation to the equator outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) (AOLR) data, for the 1979–2006 period. Spatial averages of the AOLR (\(\overline {AOLR} \)) over the CAM for the ONR periods are obtained. These periods correspond to 25 pentads centered on the mean pentad for the ONR. The sign changes from positive to negative of the \(\overline {AOLR} \) for the ONR periods indicate the transition from dry to wet season. Composites of several variables are done for pentads before and after the ONR dates. These composites show physically consistent features. The potential of the \(\overline {AOLR} \) time series as an index for monitoring tasks is analyzed. The results here show that the \(\overline {AOLR} \) for the ONR period captures the transition from dry to wet conditions in the CAM area during 2006. The advantages of this method are discussed. The new simple method proposed here seems to be efficient in determining the ONR in the CAM.

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Acknowledgements

The authors were partially supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico of Brazil. This work is part of the first author’s doctoral thesis. Thanks are due to Mr. Alan J. P. Calheiros for helping to read the TRMM-based precipitation data. Thanks are also due to two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on an earlier version of this work.

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  1. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais/ CPTEC, Avenida dos Astronautas, 1758, 12227–010, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil

    Sâmia R. Garcia & Mary T. Kayano

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  1. Sâmia R. Garcia
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  2. Mary T. Kayano
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Correspondence to Sâmia R. Garcia.

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Garcia, S.R., Kayano, M.T. Determination of the onset dates of the rainy season in central Amazon with equatorially antisymmetric outgoing longwave radiation. Theor Appl Climatol 97, 361–372 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-008-0080-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-008-0080-y

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