Open AccessQuasi‐biennial oscillations in spectral aerosol optical depth
Author(s) -
Beegum S. Naseema,
Moorthy K. Krishna,
Babu S. Suresh,
Reddy R. Ramakrishna,
Gopal K. Rama,
Ahmed Y. Nazeer
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
atmospheric science letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.951
H-Index - 45
ISSN - 1530-261X
DOI - 10.1002/asl.243
Subject(s) - quasi biennial oscillation , outgoing longwave radiation , environmental science , climatology , atmospheric sciences , aerosol , stratosphere , meteorology , geography , geology , convection
Analysis of long‐term time series of monthly mean aerosol optical depths (AOD) at four tropical stations over Asia and Africa revealed the presence of significant annual oscillations (AO) and quasi‐biennial oscillations (QBO). While the AOs were the dominant features, the QBOs in AOD (QBO AOD ) were also quite strong and were well associated with the QBO in stratospheric zonal wind (QBO U ). At the equatorial stations, QBO AOD were out of phase with QBO U , while they were in phase at the off‐equatorial stations. However, QBO in both outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and rainfall showed an out‐of‐phase relationship with QBO AOD at all stations. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society