Miami University scientists discover atmospheric lakes over Indian Ocean
Image: Physical Sciences Laboratory
Scientists at the University of Miami (USA) have discovered a new type of storm, which they called atmospheric lakes. The discovery was reported by the researchers at the annual conference of the American Geophysical Society.
Atmospheric lakes form several times a year over the western Indian Ocean in the equator and move towards Africa. Air masses, supersaturated with water vapor to a pressure of 50 millimeters of mercury, detach from the bulk of the moist air and exist for at least a week, raining heavy rainfalls on the east African coast. “Lakes” differ from ordinary atmospheric water vapor rivers, which continuously flow from source to shore, in that they represent a separate drifting mass of moisture.
As noted by Science Alert, meteorologists have discovered 17 atmospheric lakes in five years, which formed within 10 degrees of latitude from the equator and existed for more than six days. Probably, these masses are formed in other regions of the Earth, where they turn into tropical cyclones.
The researchers plan to identify the mechanism that causes atmospheric lakes to separate from the usual humid air masses constantly moving towards the shores of Africa. This may be due to the general structure of winds in the region, determined by the global climate, or the masses themselves generate local winds and are “self-propelled”. In the first case, atmospheric lakes can be affected by global climate change, changing the amount of precipitation over the east coast of Africa.
