Caracteristicas en niveles bajos

Anomalous cyclonic circulation influences the negative geopotential anomalies, and the positive
anomalies are influenced by anomalous anticyclonic circulation (Fig. 3b). In the lower troposphere,
the trade winds come from the Tropical Atlantic. They cross the Amazon, moving counter-
clockwise toward the east of the Andes Mountains near the south and southeast at 15° S, where
the flow becomes cyclonic in the central parts of the continent, forming a low close to 20° S
(Nobre et al. 2009), as can be seen in Fig. 3b. The cyclonic circulation favors the formation of the
SACZ, a typical austral summer (DJF) phenomenon in South America that plays a leading role in the
rainfall regime of the regions where it is active, causing high rainfall values. As ascending air in the
region of the SACZ cools and becomes denser, part of this volume of cold air descends on the
periphery (subsidence), forcing the development of a high-pressure area at the surface. This
explains the formation of the insignificant anomalous anticyclone circulation to the south of the
cyclonic circulation.

Anagnostou and Morales (2002); Carvalho et al. (2002); Herdies et al. (2002); Laurent et al. (2002),
and Rickenbach et al. (2002) pointed out that the circulation at low levels is distinguished in the
southwestern part of the Amazon by a marked difference concerning wind direction—coming
from the west during the SACZ and from the east when the SACZ is absent.

According to Herdies et al. (2002), the wind anomalies at 850 hPa in South America and the
neighboring oceans, represent practically reversed circulations with respect to the rainy season
means during the SACZ and non-SACZ periods. In this sense, the South American Monsoon System
(SAMS) plays an important role in the moisture transport to the Central region of South America
and in the formation of the SACZ (Grimm 2011).

Low levels

 Temperature at 1000 hPa shows the surface temperature gradient

accompanying the passing frontal system. Temperature is also one of the
factors contributing to the triggering of convection.
 Mean sea level pressure shows surface lows and highs, as well as pressure
gradients accompanying frontal system passages.
 Wind (850 hPa) shows the large-scale low-level flow that transports
moisture.
 Moisture convergence is one of the factors contributing to the development of
convection. Moisture convergence is strongest in low levels.

Caracteristicas en niveles medios

Middle levels (500 hPa):

 Vertical velocity (omega) shows the areas of upward motion, contributing to

the persistence of convection.
  Geopotential height shows the thermal and pressure distribution of the middle
troposphere.
 Wind shows the basic synoptic flow.

TYPE 1 TYPE 2

The geopotential at 500 hPa shows the synoptic scale
circulation of a SACZ event. There are negative values
of omega over the eastern part of the circulation,
which means that there is upward motion in the
middle troposphere and convergence below. There is
downward motion over southern Brazil.
The 500 hPa geopotential anomalies are
weaker than in Type 1. The upward
motions are located over the state of São
Paulo. The basic flow consists of
components coming from Amazonia and
the Atlantic Ocean.

Caracteristicas en niveles altos

In the anomaly fields of the composition at 200 hPa associated with IPE in the south of the
Amazon (Fig. 9), significant negative anomalies of −200 gpm with a closed core (Fig. 9a) and
anomalous cyclonic circulations (Fig. 9b) were found near the coast of northeast Brazil. This result
is consistent with the characteristics of high-level atmospheric circulations over tropical South
America in the austral summer, with a trough near the coast of the northeast of Brazil (Kousky and
Gan 1981). This trough promotes the formation of highlevel cyclonic vortices (HLCV) with closed
cores and a cold center, which detach themselves of the runoff and enter the continent (Kousky
and Gan 1981). The presence of HLCV near the coast of the northeast would be one of the factors
that influence the formation of the SACZ, because they prevent the displacement of frontal
systems, making them remain semi-stationary over the southeastern coast of Brazil.

For the wind composition anomalies at 200 hPa (Fig. 9b) associated with IPE in the south of the
Amazon, maximum negative anomalies could be observed between the latitudes 20° S and 30° S,
characterizing a weak subtropical jet stream (SJS). It is visible that the circulation is reversed, just
as was seen at lower levels (Fig. 3b). Between the equator and 20° N, the anomalies of the wind
vector are from the west and intense, and in the southern hemisphere, the anomalies of the wind
vector are from the east. This result is in line with Gan et al. (2004), who studied the changes in
atmospheric circulation in South America and found inverted circulations between the dry and
rainy seasons of the region. Their results show that the winds are from the east at low levels and
from the west at high levels during the dry season, with the opposite occurring during the rainy
season. These results are a function of the largescale circulation during the austral summer over
South America associated with the monsoon regime (Zhou and Lau 1998).

High levels (200 hPa):

 Zonal wind provides information about high level jet streams.

 Wind shows the basic flow and the waves in it.
 Divergence shows the areas of upward and downward motion in the
troposphere.
 TYPE 1 TYPE 2

The jet stream can be found within the region of

positive anomalies of zonal wind velocity and
divergence. There is a trough with positive values of
divergence in the northern part of the circulation.
There are easterly winds and negative divergence
values over southern Brazil, which imply descending
motion and dry air. The 'dipole pattern' is seen here as
well as at lower levels.
A westerly wind with positive values of
divergence prevails over southern Brazil.
Over northeast and southern Brazil there
are easterly winds and negative values of
divergence. The 'tripole pattern' is seen
here as well as at lower levels.

Estacionalidad de ZCAS

Two main large-scale characteristics of the South American monsoon system (SAMS) are the
reversion in direction of low-level wind anomalies between austral summer and winter followed
by an also seasonal meridional movement of rainfall maxima over South America (SA) (Zhou and
Lau 1998; Gan et al. 2004; Vera et al. 2006), associated with the annual cycle of mainly two
different mechanisms, namely: (1) the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) meridional shift over
northern SA and (2) the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ), extending from the southern
Amazonian region to central-eastern SA and the neighbouring portion of the Atlantic Ocean,
drawing a characteristic quasi-stationary diagonally-oriented cloud band region in the Northwest-
Southeast (NW-SE) direction (Kodama 1992, 1993; Quadro 1994). Some of the features observed
during a typical SCAZ episode are schematically represented in Fig. 1. Convection is increased over
the continent during summer, leading to the seasonal presence of a high-tropospheric anticyclone
over SA, the Bolivian High (BH) (Virji 1981; Silva Dias et al. 1983), accompanied by a cyclonic trough
or closed cyclonic vortex, the “Nordeste” low (NL), normally observed around 200 hPa (Kousky and
Gan 1981; Lenters and Cook 1997). Moisture convergence occurs closer to the surface, supported
by Atlantic trade winds and moisture transport from the Amazonian region toward tropical SA,
simultaneously with the weakening of the low-level moisture flow maxima pointing southwards to
northern Argentina, characterizing the South American precipitation dipole, (Nogués-Paegle and
Mo 1997). Figueroa et al. (1995) used a dry eta vertical-coordinate atmospheric model to
demonstrate that these characteristic summer features (such as the BH and the NL) and a proper
placement of the SACZ depend on the Amazonian latent heat source, a basic zonal flow, and the
Andean topography. Under these conditions, the configuration of a SACZ episode is triggered by
the presence of a Frontal System (FS) and its associated trough in around 500 hPa, whose position
also responds to remote disturbances in the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) region, as
early discussed by Grimm and Silva Dias (1995), and to the propagation of extratropical Rossby
wave trains in a Pacific-South American (PSA) teleconnection pattern (Liebmann et al. 1999, 2004;
Nogués-Paegle et al. 2000; Muza et al. 2009; van der Wiel et al. 2015).
Consequently, a cloud-cover tripolar pattern is seen: higher OLR values (with positive omega at
500 hPa and convergenceat 200 hPa) over the La Plata river basin (LPRB) and the NL areas,
surrounding the diagonal SACZ region with lower OLR (negative omega at 500 hPa and positive
divergence and 200 hPa). The preferred subsidence region, however, is generally located south-
westward from the SACZ cloud band, as a response to the enhanced convection in the Amazon
and SACZ regions (Gandú and Silva Dias 1998), however also influenced by other tropical heat
sources, which is in accordance with the bimodal, or seesaw pattern in precipitation between LPRB
and the SACZ region, described in many studies (e.g. Nogués-Paegle and Mo 1997; Nogués-Paegle
et al. 2000; Salio et al. 2002; Díaz and Aceituno 2003; Liebmann et al. 2004; Marengo et al. 2004;
Mattingly and Mote 2016).

The ocean-atmospheric coupling associated with the SACZ has also been explored. Chaves and
Nobre (2004) demonstrated that a colder South Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) pattern is
observed as a response to weaker solar radiative forcing during SACZ episodes, while preexisting
warmer (colder) South Atlantic SST anomalies tend to intensify (weaken) the SACZ activity. Jorgetti
et al. (2014), studying associations between South Atlantic SSTs and SACZ dynamics, found that
northern (southern) placements of the SACZ are associated with tropical (subtropical) warm SST
anomalies, for example, and that the consequent 850 hPa circulation anomalies are in accordance
with the SAMS active and break phases, as suggested by Jones and Carvalho (2002). The wet or
rainy period of the SAMS occurs typically between October and the end of March/beginning of
April (Gan et al. 2004, 2005; Raia and Cavalcanti 2008; Carvalho et al. 2012) and precipitation
anomalies in the SACZ region affect the most densely populated regions in Brazil (Carvalho et al.
2002; Seluchi and Chou 2009; Lima et al. 2010; Coelho et al. 2016a, b) during the SAMS wet
period.