Amazon And Negro River Breeze And Manaus Urban Area Influence In Surface Wind And Water Vapor Daily Cycles

Close to the urban area of Manaus the Negro and Amazon rivers provide a scenario where river breeze can be particularly well detected due to their width of about 5 - 10 km. Previous studies have looked into the river breeze in the Amazon Basin and detected their influence in surface data, particularly into the effect on wind and moisture. The heat island effect of the Manaus urban area has also been demonstrated using surface temperature data. Here we present an analysis using 35 years of surface weather station hourly data from the two Manaus airports, Eduardo Gomes (AEG) and Ponta de Pelada (APP). The location of these stations allows the analysis of local circulations contrasting the evolution close to the margin and in the Southern tip of the urban area and a more inland location (APP) about 25 km to the Northewest of AEG. We focus on dew point temperature, water vapor pressure, wind speed and direction providing direction statistics for the two stations and contrasting the evolution in the dry and wet seasons.In the AEG weather station data we found relatively high values of accumulated frequency of the southwest and northwest wind in the period from 9 am to 6 pm (local time - LT) due to the action of the river breeze associated to the Negro River. In June and July (dry season), when the wind was blowing from the Southeast (river-breeze wind), high values of vapor pressure (VP) were observed during the daytime due to the transport of moist air from river to land. In the wind frequency data of the APP weather station we verified maximums in nighttime and minimums in daytime period when the wind direction was from the Northwest. These characteristics of maximums and minimums of wind frequency were observed in Northeastern winds only in the dry season. High frequency of South winds in daytime and minimums in nighttime period also indicates the action of river breeze. When the wind direction was southern, we found high values of VP (e.g, higher than 30.5 hPa in several months). This occurs because southern wind, often times associated to river breeze, transports moist air from Negro River to land. The opposite, low levels of VP, was observed when the wind direction was northern, which in some cases are land-breeze wind. The northern wind transports dry air from Manaus city which decreases the values of VP over the APP region.