HR: 0800h
AN: A51C-01    [Abstracts]
TI: West Africa Mesoscale Convective Systems and Tropical Atlantic Cyclogenesis
AU: Kouadio, Y
EM: k2yves@caramail.com
AF: University of Cocody, 22 BP 582 Abidjan 22 UFR-SSMT, Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Abidjan, Cote D'ivoire
AU: Machado, L A
EM: machado@cptec.inpe.br
AF: Divisão Satélite e Sistemas Ambiantes/CPTEC/INPE, Rodovia Pres. Dutra, km 40 - 12630 000, Cachoeira Paulista - SP Brazil, Sao Paulo, Brazil
AU: * Servain, J
EM: servain@funceme.br
AF: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Fundação Cearense de Meteorologia e Recursos Hídricos-FUNCEME Av. Rui Barbosa, 1246 Fortaleza - CE - CEP 60115-221, Fortaleza, Brazil
AB: This study focus on Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) initiated in West Africa and their influence on tropical cyclogenesis. MCSs are obtained by a convective cloud cluster tracking algorithm performed at INPE/CPTEC (SP, Brazil) and using Meteosat data. We show that few MCSs associate to easterly waves moving from the continent throughout the tropical Atlantic. We present an example of Mesoscale Convective Vortices (MCV) of the stratiform clouds associated to an MCS. Although temporal lags and distances between MCSs dissipations and tropical cyclone initiations are ranged from 1 to 11 days and from 100 to 5000 km respectively, MCSs contribute to the humidification of the atmosphere that favours the development of cloud clusters necessary to the cyclogenesis. For both years 2004 and 2005, these MCSs were initiated in West Africa between 7°N-11°N and 10°W-6°E.
DE: 3300 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES
DE: 3310 Clouds and cloud feedbacks
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly