GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 30, NO. 5, 8009, doi:10.

1029/2002GL014840, 2003

South East tropical Atlantic warm events and southern African rainfall
Mathieu Rouault and Pierre Florenchie
Oceanography Department, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa

Nicolas Fauchereau
Centre de Recherches de Climatologie, CNRS, Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon, France

Chris J. C. Reason
EGS and Oceanography Department, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa Received 1 February 2002; revised 17 May 2002; accepted 21 May 2002; published 8 March 2003.

[1] Intrusions of warm equatorial water in the South East Atlantic Ocean off Angola and Namibia may be linked with above average rainfall along the coast of those countries but sometimes also with inland areas of southern Africa e.g. Zambia. During the 1984, 1986, 1995 and 2001 warm events, above average rainfall occurred near the sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies and extended inland from the coast to an extent that appeared to depend on the intensity of the regional moisture convergence and atmospheric circulation anomalies. Rainfall over western Angola/Namibia is greatest for those events for which the local circulation anomalies act to strengthen the climatological westwards flux of Indian Ocean sourced moisture across low latitude southern Africa and which flow anticyclonically over the warmest SST off the coast thereby weakening the mean southeasterly moisture flux away from Africa over the SE Atlantic. The significance of the warm events occurring during the February to April period is that this is the time when SST reaches its maximum in the annual cycle (up to 28C off northern Angola) and this favours more intense local evaporation and convection and a greater impact on late austral summer rainfall. Better understanding of these warm events is necessary for assessing impacts on regional rainfall, agriculture and fisheries and for improving INDEX TERMS: 3309 seasonal forecasting in this region.
Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Climatology (1620); 3374 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Tropical meteorology; 3319 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: General circulation; 1821 Hydrology: Floods; 3339 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Ocean/atmosphere interactions (0312, 4504). Citation: Rouault, M., P. Florenchie, N. Fauchereau, and C. J. C. Reason, South East tropical Atlantic warm events and southern African rainfall, Geophys. Res. Lett., 30(5), 8009, doi:10.1029/2002GL014840, 2003.

1. Introduction
[2] The influence of the tropical Atlantic Ocean on Brazilian and West African rainfall has been the subject of numerous studies but little has been done to understand the possible links between SST anomalies in this basin and southern African rainfall during the peak rainy season of
Copyright 2003 by the American Geophysical Union. 0094-8276/03/2002GL014840

austral summer and autumn. A recent example of the potential tropical Atlantic influence on southern Africa occurred during February to May 2001 when SST was anomalously warm in the South East Atlantic Ocean and several countries in the region experienced well above average rainfall and floods which led to significant loss of life and damage. [3] In this study, we build on the earlier work of Hirst and Hastenrath [1983] who first established a positive correlation between South East Atlantic coastal SST and Angolan coastal rainfall for late summer (March April) using data from 1940 1975. Subsequently, Nicholson and Entekhabi [1987] found that during warm South East tropical Atlantic events, above average rainfall occurred along the Angolan (6 17.5S) and Namibian (17.5 29S) coasts as well as inland. The warm events in the South East Atlantic that these authors identified are of order 2 6C in magnitude along the southwestern African coast (10 29S) and appear to occur aperiodically. Some of these events have previously been described by Shannon et al. [1986] who termed them Benguela Ninos because of their apparent similarities with the warming in the Peruvian coastal upwelling area and anomalous coastal rainfall during El Nin events. They seem to arise as warm water of o equatorial Atlantic origin propagates poleward along the southwest coast of Africa as far as about 25S where cold upwelled Benguela Current waters are usually found, hence the term Benguela Nin It is thought that the warm events os. are remotely forced since they follow ENSO-like warming in the equatorial Atlantic and a sudden relaxation of the tradewinds near Brazil [Carton and Huang, 1994; Delecluse et al., 1994]. This relaxation leads to the generation of downwelling equatorial Kelvin waves as well as a strengthening of the South Equatorial Counter Current (SECC), thereby producing a depression of the thermocline along the equator. Warm waters then accumulate in the eastern equatorial South Atlantic and downwelling coastal Kelvin waves propagate the anomalies southward along the African coast. [4] A broad basin scale warming in the tropical South Atlantic typically occurs during the mature phase of El Nino (e.g., SST anomaly maps in Reason et al. [2000]) but Benguela Ninos do not always follow these tropical warm ings [Binet et al., 2001]. For example, Shannon et al. [1986] identified Benguela Ninos in 1934, 1963, 1984 whereas only the last followed the mature phase of an El Nin event (1983). Local rainfall impacts during these o
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FMA flux integrated between 1000 and 300 hPa and calculated using NCEP wind speed and humidity re-analyses for 1949 2001. It can be seen that the flux is offshore (easterly) along the northern Namibian and southern Angolan coasts but along- or onshore for northern Angola. It is argued below that the position and intensity of the anomaly to this mean moisture flux relative to the SST anomaly helps to determine whether the rainfall impacts are mainly confined to the South East Atlantic and neighbouring coastal Angola/Namibia or extend over inland southern Africa.

3. Observed Anomalies During Warm Events

Figure 1. Mean 1968 2001 FMA integrated moisture flux from the surface to 300 hPa (g/kg.m/s). 3.1. Sea Surface Temperature [7] We have selected warm events that occurred since 1982 in February, March and April (FMA) because the SST anomaly is more likely to impact the atmospheric instability, rainfall and moisture transport during the season when the mean SST is highest. At this time, the associated heat content of the upper ocean is enhanced and this can then impact on the rainfall. Depending on the direction of the prevailing wind, the SST expression of the warm event is not necessarily representative of its impact. Nevertheless, monthly OI SST that is derived from in situ and satellite observations is used to identify the warm events. Calculations of the SST standard deviation reveals that a maximum of variability is located between 8E and the southwest coast of Africa between 10S and 20S. This area corresponds to the SST anomaly expression of Benguela Ninos and is near the front between the warm Angola Current and the cold Benguela Current. [8] A time series of monthly SST anomalies averaged over this region is presented in Figure 2 (top). Despite a relatively large number of warm or cold anomalies during this period, major warm events coincident with late austral summer occurred in 1984, 1986, 1995 and 2001. During these events, positive anomalies reached a maximum during March/April with monthly mean SST reaching as high as 30C along the coast of Angola. Other positive anomalies can be seen at other times during the 20 year dataset, but they were either weaker, did not last more than 3 months or occurred during the dry austral winter season and hence were excluded from consideration. In particular, the apparent warming in 1991 was excluded because it started later (April/May).

events included heavy rainfall (1934, 1963) and flooding (1984) in the usually arid Namibian coastal area. In addition to rainfall impacts, the warm events significantly influence local fisheries because of the associated depression of the thermocline and large surface and sub-surface temperature anomalies [Binet et al., 2001]. During the 1995 event, ocean temperature anomalies of up to 8C were measured below 30 m depth and cruise data showed these anomalies to extend up to 300 km offshore [Gammelsrod et al., 1998]. This had a strong influence on local fish distribution and abundance in Angolan and Namibian coastal waters. [5] Following on from the earlier work of Hirst and Hastenrath [1983] and Nicholson and Entekhabi [1987], the objective in this study is to make use of more recent satellite and NCEP re-analysis data to better understand the impact of recent warm events in 1984, 1986, 1995 and 2001 on late summer (FMA) rainfall and moisture flux in the southern African/South East Atlantic region. It should be noted however, that the major source of moisture for austral summer rainfall over southern Africa is the western Indian Ocean (Figure 1) and therefore that these events can only act as a local perturbation to the secondary source of southern African moisture from the South East Atlantic. The moisture flux from the primary western Indian Ocean source and the secondary tropical SE Atlantic source tends to converge over northern Angola/southern Congo basin on average during this season. However, the atmospheric circulation anomalies during the events may sometimes allow the influence of these events to be felt well inland from the Angolan/ Namibian coastal region and this is explored below.

2. Data and Mean Conditions

[6] Monthly data from the 1 resolution 1982 2001 Optimal Interpolation SST (OI SST) of Reynolds and Smith [1994] are used to document the SST warming during the events. The 2.5 resolution 1979 2001 Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) [Huffman et al., 1997] and NCEP re-analysis datasets [Kalnay et al., 1996] are used to assess the rainfall and circulation anomalies. The former is a combination of gauge measurements and satellite estimates and gives the best available coverage in the tropical South Atlantic/southern African region. Of major interest in this study is the moisture flux and Figure 1 shows the mean

Figure 2. Top, SST anomalies from January 1982 to November 2001 off Angola and North Namibia averaged for [8S 20S; 8E-Coast]; bottom, rain rate anomalies in mm per day averaged for [7.5S 20S; 7.5E 15.5E].

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appeared off the coast of Angola from 2S to 18S. They intensified southward in February to reach values of about 2.5C between 10S and 20S and, by March, formed an intense warm pool between 12 and 20S with a maximum of about 5C near 17S. During the same month, SST reached over 30C between 5S and 15S along the Angolan coast. SST anomalies were still strong in April (>3C) but decreased the following month. Surface winds were not favorable to upwelling and may have contributed to the intensity of the SST. For the 2001 event, warming off the Angolan coast began in January before progressing south and intensifying in February. Maximum anomalies of up to 3C were observed near 17S in March. During April and May, the warmer water spread over a greater area but decreased in magnitude with the event ending in July. 3.2. Precipitation Rate [11] Figure 2 suggests that the warm events are associated with above average rainfall in the Angolan/Namibian coastal region. The spatial extent of the FMA precipitation anomalies derived for the four events can be seen in Figures 3c, 3f, 3i, and 3l. Due to strong precipitation gradients in Southern Africa and surrounding oceans, this figure plots the FMA precipitation anomalies divided by the FMA standard deviation at each grid point. Monthly precipitation anomalies during the recent warm events seem to have persisted from November 1983 to March 1984, February to April 1986, December 1994 to March 1995 and March to April 2001. Figure 3 suggests that there is a relatively homogeneous rainfall response (at least in the western Angolan/Namibian region) to the warm events in which seasonal anomalies of up to 2 standard deviation occur near the SST anomalies and neighboring land areas. This finding is consistent with the earlier work by Hirst and Hastenrath [1983] and Nicholson and Entekhabi [1987]. [12] Of course the rainfall in Southern Africa is highly dependent on the general circulation and rainfall anomalies do not necessarily appear for each month of the warm event. While increased rainfall in the Angolan/Namibian coastal region is a common feature for each case shown in Figure 3, the magnitude of the anomaly and their spatial distribution further inland over Southern Africa varies between events. To understand these rainfall impacts better, the integrated tropospheric moisture flux is examined below to see where the precipitation anomalies may originate from. 3.3. Moisture Flux [13] Figures 3b, 3e, 3h, and 3k shows the anomaly from the mean FMA moisture flux integrated from the surface to the 300 hPa level. This is to be examined with Figure 1, the mean FMA integrated moisture flux. Figure 3 indicates that for each event there is also a significant feature imposed on the mean easterly moisture flux in the Angolan/Namibian region. The largest precipitation anomalies in western Angola/Namibia occur for those events for which this circulation feature is anticyclonic, thereby enhancing the flow over the warmest SST off the Angolan coast, and linked across low latitude southern Africa to enhanced inflow from the tropical South West Indian Ocean (1984, 1986). On the other hand, for the 1995 and 2001 events, the local circulation anomaly was cyclonic and there was a reduced moisture flux from the western Indian Ocean.

Figure 3. Left: mean FMA SST anomalies for 1984 (a); 1986(d) 1995(g) and 2001 ( j) contour at 0.5C, 1.5C and 2.5C. Middle: mean FMA integrated moisture from the surface to 300 hPa flux anomalies for 1984 (b), 1986 (e) 1995 (h) and 2001 (k) in g/kg.m/s. Right: mean FMA rain rate normalized anomalies for 1984 (c), 1986(f) 1995 (i) and 2001 (l).
[9] Figures 3a, 3d, 3g, and 3j show the spatial extent of the SST anomalies for late austral summer (FMA) for the four recent events of 1984, 1986, 1995 and 2001. To be discussed later are the other panels showing regional precipitation and moisture flux anomaly for these events. 1995 is the most extreme event in terms of SST. There is a general pattern of maximum warming near 17S and anomalies extend northwest into the tropical SE Atlantic. Although the maximum warming tends to occur in late austral summer, there are slight differences in the timing of onset and duration of each event. During the 1984 event, positive SST anomalies of up to 1.5C started to develop in February along the coast between 10S and 20S despite wind anomalies being favorable to upwelling [Shannon et al., 1986] thus reducing the surface expression of the warm event. In March, anomalies reached a maximum of about 4C near 17S while in April, SST anomalies began to decrease slowly and to move equatorward along the coast of Angola. Along the Namibian coast, SSTA of up to 2C continued until September in a large area extending from the equator to about 18S. [10] The 1986 event started relatively late (February). Surface warming of 1 1.5C occurred along the Angolan coast in February and became more confined to the southern Angolan coast and intensified to 2 2.5C in March. By April, the warming had spread to the northern Namibian coast, but was more confined to the coast than previously, with maximum anomalies of over 3C. However, the demise of the event was rapid with little evidence of a coastal warming during the following month. In December 1994 and January 1995, positive anomalies of about 1.5C

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[14] Thus, for the 1995 event, the SE Atlantic SSTA was largest but the inflow into Angola/Namibia from the Indian Ocean was weaker than average and the rainfall was enhanced only by the Atlantic source. For the 2001 event, there was relative convergence in southern Zambia and northern Zimbabwe between the onshore moisture flux over north west Angola from the SE Atlantic SSTA and that coming from the Indian Ocean. Hence, the largest precipitation anomalies occurred over central southern Africa with those in western Angola/Namibia influenced by the SE Atlantic moisture flux. By contrast, the moisture flux from the Indian Ocean across low latitude southern Africa was enhanced in 1984 and 1986 with relative convergence over western Angola/Namibia. This, together with the increased evaporation and more unstable lower atmosphere over the warm SE Atlantic SSTA, led to relatively large precipitation anomalies in this region. [15] In summary, it appears that the influence of the SSTA in the tropical SE Atlantic on Angolan and Namibian rainfall is enhanced if the easterly inflow of moisture from the western Indian Ocean is greater than average. Local evaporation and enhanced instability in the region of the SE Atlantic SSTA therefore act to augment the precipitation derived from the Indian source rather than providing a dominant source of moisture. The local circulation anomaly in the Angola/Namibia region then serves to weaken the climatological export of moisture from southern Africa out over the Atlantic Ocean seen in Figure 1. For 1984 and 1986, where this regional feature is anticyclonic, this also serves to weaken the southeasterly mean moisture flux and relative divergence over the coastal ocean. As a result, there is greater entrainment of relatively moist air near the warm SSTA and enhancement of rainfall. On the other hand, for 1995 and 2001, the cyclonic anomaly actually increases the mean southeasterly flux over the waters off Namibia and hence there is less entrainment of moist air off the warm SSTA and the rainfall increase over western Namibia/ Angola is not as great as that for 1984 and 1986.

anomaly acts to weaken the mean southeasterly flux over the coastal waters, the resulting precipitation enhancement is greater than for those cases (1995, 2001) where this southeasterly flux is strengthened. [17] While warm events may be associated with unwelcome floods along the Angolan and Namibian coast, increased rainfall elsewhere can sometimes alleviate droughts in other regions of Southern Africa. These rainfall impacts, together with those on Benguela fisheries and the fact that they are an oceanographic phenomenon with relatively long lead times, suggests that better monitoring of the tropical SE Atlantic region is important and could have significant societal benefits. Monitoring of the warm event upstream could provide an early warning forecast system that could be beneficial to both agriculture and fisheries. [18] Acknowledgments. Partial funding for this study from the WRC, NRF, CNRS, BCLME, South Africa/France cooperation program is gratefully acknowledged. Data analysed in this study was generously supplied by the National Center for Environmental Prediction, the Climate Diagnostics Center of NOAA and the Global Precipitation Climatology Project. This is a contribution to the BCLME.

References
Binet, D., B. Gobert, and L. Maloueki, El Nino-like warm events in the Eastern Atlantic (6N, 20S) and fish availability from Congo to Angola (1964 1999), Aquat. Living Resour., 14, 99 113, 2001. Carton, J. A., and B. Huang, Warm events in the tropical Atlantic, J. Phys. Oceanogr., 24, 888 903, 1994. Delecluse, P., J. Servain, C. Levy, K. Arpe, and L. Bengsston, On the connection between the 1984 warm event and the 1982 1983 ENSO, Tellus, 46a, 448 464, 1994. Gammelsrd, T., C. H. Bartholomae, D. C. Boyer, V. L. L. Filipe, and M. J. OToole, Intrusion of warm surface layer along the Angolan Namibian coast in February March: the 1995 Benguela Nino, S. Afr. J. Mar. Sci., 19, 41 56, 1998. Kalnay, E., et al., The NCEP/NCAR, 40-Year Reanalysis Project, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 437 471, 1996. Hirst, A. C., and S. Hastenrath, Atmosphere-ocean mechanisms of climate anomalies in the Angola Tropical Atlantic sector, J. Phys. Oceanog., 13, 1146 1157, 1983. Huffman, G. J., R. F. Adler, P. Arkin, A. Chang, R. Ferraro, A. Gruber, J. Janowiak, A. McNab, B. Rudolf, and U. Schneider, The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Combined Precipitation Data Sets, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 78(1), 5 20, 1997. Nicholson, S. E., and D. Entekhabi, The nature of rainfall variability in equatorial and southern Africa: Relationships with SST along the southwestern coast of Africa, J. Clim. Applied Meteorol., 26, 561 578, 1987. Reason, C. J. C., R. J. Allan, J. A. Lindesay, and T. J. Ansell, ENSO and climatic signals across the Indian Ocean basin in the global context: Part I Interannual composite patterns, Int. J. Climatol., 20, 1285 1327, 2000. Reynolds, R. W., and T. M. Smith, Improved global sea surface temperature analyses using optimum interpolation, J. Climate, 7, 929 948, 1994. Shannon, L. V., A. J. Boyd, G. B. Brundrit, and J. Taunton-Clark, On the existence of an El Nino-type phenomenon in the Benguela system, J. Mar. Res., 44, 495 520, 1986.

4. Discussion
[16] The occurrence of warm events in the tropical SE Atlantic during late austral summer at the time of maximum annual SST can amplify local atmospheric instability, evaporation and rainfall. These events are associated with above average rainfall over the tropical SE Atlantic and western Angola/Namibia. If the large scale circulation is favorable, then the precipitation anomalies may extend further into southern Africa. Examination of the moisture fluxes suggested that the size of the rainfall anomalies in western Angola/Namibia is influenced by the local circulation anomaly imposed on the mean easterly flux of moisture into this region from the western Indian Ocean. All events show an anomaly that serves to weaken the offshore export of moisture out over the eastern Atlantic. However, for those cases (1984, 1986) for which the easterly flux from the Indian Ocean is enhanced and for which the local

M. Rouault and P. Florenchie, Oceanography Department, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa. (rouault@ physci.uct.ac.za) N. Fauchereau, Centre de Recherches de Climatologie, CNRS, Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon, France. C. J. C. Reason, EGS and Oceanography Department, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa.