The Intraseasonal Variability of African Easterly Wave Energetics

Abstract

Abstract African easterly waves (AEWs) and associated perturbation kinetic energy (PKE) exhibit significant intraseasonal variability in tropical North Africa during boreal summer. Consistent with East Africa (e.g., east of Lake Chad) being an initiation region for AEWs, previous studies have shown that increased East African PKE precedes and leads to increased West African AEW activity on intraseasonal time scales. In this study, reanalysis budgets of PKE and perturbation available potential energy (PAPE) are used to understand this behavior. The variability of PKE and PAPE sources is analyzed as a function of Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) phase and a local 30–90-day West African PKE index to diagnose when and where eddy energy conversions terms are important to periods of increased or decreased intraseasonal AEW activity. In East Africa, an increased meridional temperature gradient locally enhances baroclinic energy conversion anomalies to initiate periods of increased intraseasonal AEW activity. Downstream barotropic and baroclinic energy conversions associated with strong AEWs are important for the maintenance of intraseasonal AEW activity in West Africa. Barotropic energy conversions dominate south of the African easterly jet (AEJ), while baroclinic energy conversions are most important north of the AEJ. In both East and West Africa, diabatic heating does not appear to aid intraseasonal PKE creation. Instead, negative PAPE tendency anomalies due to the diabatic heating–temperature covariance act as a negative feedback to increased baroclinic energy conversion downstream in the AEJ.