An estimate of the summertime tropospheric vorticity budget over South America.

Abstract

Objectively analyzed wind fields from summertime (January and February) cloud wind data are used to estimate the average values of the large-scale upper tropospheric vorticity budget components over tropical and subtropical South America. The predominant component in the vorticity budget, the horizontal divergence of vorticity, is not balanced by the other large-scale components in the budget. Thus, large imbalances in the budget, interpreted as representing the effects of subgrid-scale processes, are found over the Amazon River basin.-from Author