Southern Africa winter temperature shifts and their link to the Southern Annular Mode

The main characteristics of spatial and temporal variability of the winter (June-August) observed surface air minimum temperature (SAMT) of southern Africa (Africa south of the equator) were examined from 1960 to 2011. The empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis was used to extract the dominant mode of SAMT variability. Statistically significant shifts were detected in both the index derived from the spatially averaged regional SAMT and its EOF1 time coefficients. These discontinuities displayed a sharp rise followed by an abrupt drop during the periods around 1988 and 2007 respectively. The years corresponded to change points in the Southern Annular Mode index where the 1988 significant alteration to a relatively more positive index polarity was followed by a sudden weakening during the latter shift. The development of the warm phase coincided with the decoupling of SAM from SAMT. This occurred when the strengthening of the western ridge of the Mascarene High appeared to be coupled to the creation of anomalously low pressure systems over Angola and the region pole-ward of South Africa. In this epoch, the meridional wind over southern Africa reversed to become predominantly northerly and hence was symptomatic of warm temperature advection from the lower latitudes. However the post 2007 era, though still of indeterminate length, is characterized by a partial return to the pre-1988 circulation conditions. This implies that the impacts of SAM's epochal alterations have implications not only for the current climate, but also for the interpretation of climate change over southern Africa.