Search results for "Tropical"
showing 10 items of 652 documents
Neurological manifestations of the West Nile virus infection in some cases found in the clinic of infectious diseases in Sibiu, Romania
2014
Background The neurological manifestations in the West Nile virus infections are present in less than 1% of the diagnosed cases, neurological manifestations which may take many different forms, from encephalitis, meningitis, GuillainBarre syndrome, optic neuritis to polio-like manifestations. We aimed to evaluate the clinical and paraclinical aspects of the cases presenting neurological infections caused by the West Nile virus diagnosed and treated in our clinic.
Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer
2010
This paper investigates the influence of some modes of climate variability on the spatio-temporal rainfall variability over South Africa during the core of the rainy season, December to February (DJF). All analyses are based directly on the rainfall field instead of atmospheric processes and dynamics. An original agglomerative hierarchical clustering approach is used to classify daily rainfall patterns recorded at 5352 stations from DJF 1971 to DJF 1999. Five clusters are retained for analysis. Amongst them, one cluster looks most like the rainfall and circulation mean picture. Another one, representing 37% of the days, describes strong negative rainfall anomalies over South Africa resultin…
Inter-Relationships Between Groundnut Yield in Senegal, Interannual Rainfall Variability and Sea-Surface Temperatures
1999
Groundnut production strongly contributes to Senegal’s economy. Interannual variations of groundnut yield for the country as a whole, and their relationship with rainfall amounts, are examined for the 31-yr period 1960–1990. It is shown that on that scale, and after removing decadal trends, almost half of the variance is explained by rainfall variability, especially that of the early part of the rainy season (July–August). Given the high spatial coherence of seasonal rainfall in the region, teleconnections with global- and regional-scale climate dynamics, including sea-surface temperatures, are assessed. Though some features are similar to the rest of the Sahel, others are more specific, su…
The East African March–May Rainy Season: Associated Atmospheric Dynamics and Predictability over the 1968–97 Period
2002
Abstract This paper focuses on the East African March–May “long rains.” Particularly, it investigates the atmospheric patterns associated to the March–May rainfall anomalies, then proposes a seasonal prediction model. In a preliminary step, in order to define a regional rainfall index, a new form of extended principal component analysis is performed, aimed at capturing both the spatial and intraseasonal rainfall coherence. What emerges is that although the long rains exhibit a low temporal coherence, calling for a separation between the months of March–April and May in teleconnection studies, they show a relatively strong spatial consistency over the Kenya–Uganda inland region. From composi…
The onset of the rainy season in Yunnan province, PR China and its significance for agricultural operations
1993
Data of 134 stations located in Yunnan province, PR China were analysed in order to study the temporal and spatial characteristics of the onset of the rainy season and to investigate the consequences for farming operations. Using a precipitation threshold value, a time span of 12 weeks was found for the complete onset of the rainy season, while the range of onset dates varied from 37 days to 155 days. The onset occurred at different places across the province and showed active and break phases due to the interaction of four different branches of the atmospheric circulation. The onset of the growing season, determined by summing up decade precipitation totals, showed the same general pattern…
Interannual variability of rainfall in the eastern horn of Africa and indicators of atmospheric circulation
1993
Relationships between rainfall variations in the Eastern Horn of Africa, the Southern Oscillation, and the Indian Ocean temperature and pressure surface fields are studied for the period 1932–83. Rainfall data consist of stations and regional indices calculated for three selected areas experiencing quite different rainfall patterns. The results indicate significant negative correlations between northern autumn rains in Somalia and the Southern Oscillation during the same season. These rains are also negatively correlated with pressure in the Western Indian Ocean, and positively correlated in the Eastern Indian Ocean. The reverse pattern is shown with sea-surface temperature. This agrees ver…
Ethnographic context and spatial coherence of climate indicators for farming communities : a multi-regional comparative assessment
2015
Accurate seasonal predictions of rainfall may reduce climatic risks that farmers are usually faced with across the tropical and subtropical zones. However, although regional-scale seasonal amounts have regularly been forecasted since 1997/98, the practical use of these seasonal predictions is still limited by myriad factors. This paper synthesizes the main resultsof a multi-disciplinary ethnographic and climatic project (PICREVAT). Its main objective was to seek the climatic information ? beyond the seasonal amounts ? critical for crops, both as an actual constraint to crop yields and as identified by the current and past practices and perceptions of farmers. A second goal was to confront t…
Intraseasonal wind anomalies related to wet and dry spells during the ?long? and ?short? rainy seasons in Kenya
1997
The largest part of Kenya exhibits two major rainy seasons, the March–May «long rains» and the October–December «short rains», both related to the passage of the ITCZ, but differing in the amount of rainfall recorded and its interannual variability. In order to investigate whether these differences also apply at intraseasonal time-scales, daily rainfall data for the peak month of each rainy season (April and November) were collected for 7 consecutive years (1982–1988). The network comprises 68 stations, from which a classification of the spatial patterns of daily rainfall anomalies has been performed. Wind anomalies corresponding to the various rainfall types and to specific regional rainfa…
Analysis of climatic data and forecast indices for human fascioliasis at very high altitude
1999
Human infection with Fasciola hepatica has recently been recognized as an important health problem worldwide, and particularly at very high altitudes in South America. The highest prevalences and intensities of human fascioliasis known are those of the northern Bolivian Altiplano, where infected Lymnaea truncatula occur at altitudes of 3800-4100 m. In the present study, the climatic data for this area of the Altiplano, which differ markedly from those of endemic areas in the lowlands, were analysed. There is no marked seasonality in temperature but there are large variations in temperature within a daily, 24-h period. Rainfall is seasonal, with a long dry season, coinciding with the lowest …
Droughts Over Amazonia in 2005, 2010, and 2015: A Cloud Cover Perspective
2018
Amazon forests experienced recent severe droughts in an anomalous short period induced by different mechanisms and had different length periods and spatial patterns. Droughts of 2005 and 2010 were attributed to anomalous Sea Surface Temperature (SST) over the Tropical North Atlantic (TNA) during the dry season, but the 2010 drought was more severe and remained for a longer period because it was also induced in late 2009 by a moderate to strong El Niño (EN). Drought in 2015 led to unprecedented warming and extreme soil moisture deficits over some regions, and it was attributed to a very strong EN. Several studies analyzed these drought events regarding different climatic factors such as anom…