Response of air surface temperature over Central America to oceanic climate variability indices.

Abstract

In this study were used 337 grid points (0.5 ° latitude x 0. 5° longitude), over Central America, from a monthly air surface temperature data set. The annual cycle, secular trend and decadal variability were removed and seasonal series were calculated. Then multiple regression models were adjusted between the temperature first principal components (dependent variables) and several Sea Surface Temperature indices (independent variables) for all the seasons. These models show that indices related with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) have the main influence over the region when compared with the influence of the other i ndices, having positive correlation with all the surface temperature seasons. It could be an indicative of latent and sensible heat transfer from the ocean to the overlying atmosphere. All these models had percentage of detection greater than 50% and false alarm rates lower than 10%. In the decadal scale, the temperature in Central America shows similar relationships with the tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans through pos itive correlations with both oceanic regions.