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Northwest Africa upwelling and the Atlantic climate variability
Author(s) -
Polo Irene,
de Fonseca Belén Rodríguez,
Sheinbaum Julio
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2005gl023883
Subject(s) - upwelling , subtropics , climatology , sea surface temperature , oceanography , geology , climatic variability , climate change , tropical atlantic , environmental science , fishery , biology
Summer Subtropical North Atlantic (SNA) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies have recently been connected to winter atmospheric variability in the Atlantic European sector. Wind‐induced surface heat flux changes are believed to be the major cause of SNA SST anomalies. However, the impact of coastal upwelling off northwest Africa, on SNA SST variability has been overlooked. Since the area is known to have a richer dynamical behavior than other regions of the central SNA, subsurface thermal anomalies are included in our analysis. Results show that this upwelling region affects significantly the patterns of co‐variability between climatically relevant variables, suggesting that more intricate processes may be involved in generating surface anomalies that, in turn, may influence the European sector climate variability.