Recent developments in Southern Hemisphere meteorology (Invited Presentation)

The science of Southern Hemisphere meteorology has grown substantially since the first Conference on this subject held in Sao Jose dos Campos in 1983. The formation of the AMS Committee on Southern Hemisphere meteorology was founded upon the expectation that elements of austral weather may differ substantially from those found in the northern hemisphere. The intervening years have vindicated this expectation in a series of remarkable discoveries showing the truly unique character of the austral weather patterns. Perhaps the most stunning discovery was the ozone hole, which was first documented several years after the Sao Jose Conference, and led to contributions by future nobel laureates in subsequent related conferences in Buenos Aires. More recently, enhanced monitoring at the Andean Bolivian foothills has displayed a very prominent low-level jet that has some distinctive features with respect to low-level-jets in other parts of the world. This research and recent research on the ozone hole will be updated in other talks. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the increased understanding of intra-seasonal oscillations of the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ). This feature was only being discovered around the time that the committee on Southern Hemisphere meteorology was established, and has now been much more extensively studied. We review background literature that describes the relation of the SACZ to South American flood and drought, to Northern Hemisphere predictability, and to the dynamical structure of the Southern Hemisphere weather patterns.