Why are tropics hot and wet




















Since it doesn't change much see Figure 3, which compares a year's worth of surface temperature data from two Australian cities, one in the tropics and one in midlatitudes , it's easy to forecast, even far in advance. For a given upcoming date, just look up what the temperature was on that date in a few past years; it will probably have been not too different on that same date in different years, and will be within the same narrow range this year.

Figure 2: Three weather maps from May 15, Top: mean sea level pressure, contour interval 5 hPa. Bottom: equivalent black body temperature, K; color scale shown below the plot, values greater than are indicative of clear skies and are not shown, while lower values are indicative of clouds and rain. Note the much greater temperature and pressure variations indicated by many more contours in the higher latitudes compared to the tropics.

Clouds and rain as indicated by black body temperature are nonetheless quite different from place to place within the tropics, although pressure and temperature are not. Figure 3: Daily maximum surface temperatures. Hobart — the higher-latitude city — besides being colder overall, has much greater variations in temperature, both in the seasonal cycle and the day-to-day fluctuations, than does Darwin, the tropical city.

Winds and rain, on the other hand, are difficult to predict in the tropics. Without strong highs, lows and fronts pushing the air around and determining where it rises, the rain appears to form more from the spontaneous bubbling up of buoyant convective clouds.

These convective clouds are what we know in many areas as thunderstorms — though over ocean in particular, they need not necessarily produce thunder and lightning. When these clouds become big and organized enough, they can generate their own large-scale weather systems. At any given moment, much of the tropics seems to have the potential for such systems to develop, but most of the time they do not, for reasons that are neither clear to scientists nor well-predicted by computer models.

The humidity field may be part of the answer — regions of higher humidity may be more prone to disturbed weather than drier regions, and humidity varies more than temperature within the tropics, particularly in the upper atmosphere. However, this is not a completely satisfying or useful answer either, because humidity in turn is strongly influenced by the weather, and can change rapidly.

Some disturbances, for example, are known as "easterly waves" because they follow along in the direction the overall trade winds are blowing, from east to west — the opposite direction of the westerly winds at higher latitudes. As with the wave patterns of high and low pressure systems in the extratropics, the term wave here indicates a wavy pattern in a map of the wind field over a large area.

Easterly waves have long been well known in the Caribbean, for example Riehl , where they arrive after forming over west Africa and moving across the tropical Atlantic ocean. Some of them eventually strengthen into tropical cyclones — known as hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, typhoons in the western Pacific, and simply cyclones in the Indian ocean and southern hemisphere — which are the most organized and destructive of tropical weather systems.

Some other types of tropical weather systems were first predicted in the s by theoretical meteorologists studying the partial differential equations that govern the motion of a thin fluid layer on a rotating sphere Matsuno These various waves are somewhat predictable, lasting for periods of days or even a week or more. Computer models still don't capture these tropical disturbances as well as they do midlatitude weather systems, but are improving.

These statistical forecasts essentially just assume that a given wave will continue to move in the same direction and speed as it has thus far.

Features tilted down to the right are moving eastward, features tilting down to the left are moving westward. The different colored contours indicate convectively coupled wave disturbances of different types: blue contours are the Madden-Julian oscillation, black are equatorial Rossby waves, green are Kelvin waves.

The period after June 1 shows a forecast produced on that date by assuming propagation of these waves at their normal speeds. All rights reserved. The tropical climate also has slower variations that are coherent and, to some extent, predictable. The patterns move from west to east, taking a month or two to complete a cycle. The cycles are not entirely regular, and within a rainy or dry period the weather may differ from what is prevalent during that period there may be some rain during a dry period or vice versa so that knowing the state of the MJO by itself does not allow accurate daily weather prediction.

It does, however, give some predictability to the broader state of the climate system over periods of 2—3 weeks or sometimes even longer. The MJO appears to be in a class by itself, as the largest and slowest of the tropical weather disturbances. The MJO was not predicted by the classic theory of equatorial waves — it was discovered first in observations, and still has not been adequately explained.

This makes some aspects of the climate predictable on horizons of months to a year, though again it does not allow prediction of the specific weather on any given day that far in advance.

Boer, G. Analyzed and forecast large-scale tropical divergent flow. Monthly Weather Review , Bond, N. On the Madden Julian oscillation and precipitation in Oregon and Washington. Weather Forecasting 18 , Bretherton, C.

An energy-balance analysis of deep convective self-aggregation above uniform SST. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 62 , Cassou, C. Intraseasonal interaction between the Madden-Julian oscillation and the North Atlantic oscillation. Nature , Gruber, A. The wavenumber-frequency spectra of satellite-measured brightness in the tropics. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 31 , Jones, C. Occurrence of extreme precipitation events in California and relationships with the Madden Julian oscillation.

Journal of Climate 13 , Liu, C. Effects of convectively generated gravity waves and rotation on the organization of convection. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 61 , Lorenz, E. The predictability of a flow which possesses many scales of motion.

Tellus 21 , Madden, R. Detection of a day oscillation in the zonal wind in the tropical Pacific. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 28 , Description of global-scale circulation cells in the tropics with a day period. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 29 , Observations of the day tropical oscillation: A review. Mapes, B. Gregarious tropical convection. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 50 , Cloud clusters and superclusters over the oceanic warm pool.

Matsuno, T. Quasi-geostrophic motions in the equatorial area. Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan 44 , Philander, S.

Academic Press, Reed, R. Structure and properties of synoptic-scale wave disturbances in the equatorial western Pacific. Sarachik, E. Stevens, A. Introduction to the basic drivers of climate. Nature Education Knowledge 2 , Takayabu, Y. Large-scale cloud disturbances associated with equatorial waves. Part I: Spectral features of the cloud disturbances. Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan 72 , Wallace, J. Observational evidence of Kelvin waves in the tropical stratosphere.

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 25 , Wheeler, M. Convectively coupled equatorial waves: Analysis of clouds and temperature in the wavenumber-frequency domain. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 56 , Real-time monitoring and prediction of modes of coherent synoptic to intraseasonal tropical variability. Yanai, M. Stratospheric wave disturbances propagating over the equatorial Pacific.

Zangvil, A. Temporal and spatial behavior of large-scale disturbances in tropical cloudiness deduced from satellite brightness data. Global Change: An Overview. Conservation of Biodiversity. Unlike other types of climate, tropical weather supports the growth of vibrant, fresh produce all year. Being able to enjoy truly fresh food at any time of the year is a benefit that can translate into improved health.

Tropical Heat and Humidity Heat can do strange things to your energy levels, skin, hair, your sleep quality, everything. A few things to know about tropical living, that nobody else may have mentioned, are below. Your hair may become super wavy, frizzy or curly. The climate is warm and moist throughout the year, with little variation in temperatures. This means that the belt around the Equator is rich in resources to support biodiversity with all its different requirements. The main disadvantage with between-group designs is that they can be complex and often require a large number of participants to generate any useful and reliable data.

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