ROLE OF A TROPICAL “MARITIME CONTINENT” IN THE ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION¹

Abstract

Thunderstorm frequency and amount of moisture above 500 mb. both indicate that the equatorial regions of South America and Africa and the "maritime continent" of Indonesia and the Carolines generate a much greater amount of heat for export than do equatorial oceanic regions. Over the maritime continent in January 1963, heat generated from excessive rains was efficiently transported northward and through conversion of potential to kinetic energy probably helped maintain an intense subtropical jet stream. In January 1964 drought over the maritime continent was accompanied by a relative accumuhtion of heat in the upper troposphere, associated with inefficient poleward transport, and a much weaker circulation. Most winters over the western Pacific and southeast Asia fluctuate between situations typical of January 1963 and January 1964. Since the troposphere over the maritime continent in winter is probably the single greatest source of energy for the extratropical circulation, the proposed Marshall Island experiment should be modified to include Indonesia and be rescheduled to include winter.

Intraseasonal Variability of δ¹⁸O of Precipitation over the Indonesian Maritime Continent Related to the Madden–Julian Oscillation

“…The unique location of the tropical Maritime Continent (MC) (Ramage 1968) cause complex patterns of weather and climate variability over different timescales. Seasonal precipitation variability is affected mainly by the Asian and Australian Monsoon and the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (Hamada et al 2002;Aldrian and Susanto 2003).…”

Interannual Fluctuations of the Tropical Monsoon Circulation Over the Greater WMONEX Area

“…Recently, a series of research work on the interannual fluctuations of the tropical winter monsoon was conducted. Ramage (1968) analyzed the winter monsoon circulation and associated precipitation during January 1963 and January 1964. He suggested that a strong easterly wind at the 200mb level near Singapore was associated with the strong winter monsoon at the low level.…”

Seasonal dependence of the predictable low-level circulation patterns over the tropical Indo-Pacific domain

“…The tropical Indo-Pacific domain is one of the key regions controlling the global climate variability (Ramage 1968;Neelin et al 1998;Torrence and Webster 1998;Lau et al 2000Lau et al , 2002Wang et al 2000;Wang and Zhang 2002;Kosaka and Xie 2013). The large-scale atmospheric circulation over this region plays an important role in not only influencing the variability of the tropical climate systems but also transferring their impacts remotely through teleconnections (Wang and Zhang 2002;Cai et al 2011;Sun and Zhou 2013).…”