Identification and Climatology of Southern Hemisphere Mobile Fronts in a Modern Reanalysis

AbstractPresented here is an objective approach to identify, characterize, and track Southern Hemisphere mobile fronts in hemispheric analyses of relatively modest resolution, such as reanalyses. Among the principles in its design were that it should be based on broadscale synoptic considerations and be as simple and easily understood as possible. The resulting Eulerian scheme has been applied to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA)–Interim and a climatology of frontal characteristics, at both the 10-m and 850-hPa levels, derived for the period 1 January 1989–28 February 2009. The knowledge of the character of these features is central to understanding weather and climate over the hemisphere.In both summer and winter the latitude belt 40°–60°S hosts the highest frequency of frontal points, but there are significant zonal asymmetries within this band. The climatology reveals that the longest fronts are in the Indian Ocean where mean lengths exceed 2000 km. The me...

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