Climatology of the Heat Low and the Intertropical Discontinuity in the
Arabian Peninsula
Abstract
In this paper, the climatological state and the seasonal variability of
the Arabian Heat Low (AHL) and the Intertropical Discontinuity (ITD) are
investigated over the Arabian Peninsula using the 1979-2019 ERA-5
reanalysis data. The AHL is a summertime feature, mostly at 15º-35ºN and
40º-60ºE, exhibiting a clear strengthening over the last four decades in
line with the observed increase in surface temperature. However, no
clear shift in its position is detected. The AHL, driven by both
thermodynamic and dynamic forcing, is broader and stronger during
daytime, and exhibits considerable variability on day-to-day
time-scales, likely due to the convection associated with the Asian
summer monsoon. The ITD is the boundary between the hot and dry desert
air and the cooler and more moist air from the Arabian Sea. It lies
along the Arabian Peninsula’s southern coastline in the cold season but
reaches up to 28º N between 50º - 60º E in the summer months. While in
the former it has a rather small diurnal variability, in the latter it
shows daily fluctuations of up to 10º in latitude. The presence of the
Sarawat Mountains over southwestern Saudi Arabia preclude a northward
migration of the ITD in this area. The ITD exhibited a weak northward
migration in the 41-year period, likely due to the increased sea surface
temperatures in the Arabian Sea. On inter-annual timescales, the El
Niño-Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and
solar-geomagnetic effects play an important role in the AHL’s and ITD’s
variability.