A five-year climatology of back-trajectories from the Izaña basiline station, Tenerife, Canary Islands

Abstract

As a contribution to lhe climatological characterization of the lzaña baseline observatory (Tenerife, Canary lslands, Spain), back-trajectories were calculated and an air mass climatology was developed for a 5-ycar period. On a daily basis, 5-day back-trajectories were computed for lhe 850- and 700- HPa levels from January 1983 to December 1987. Trajectories were separated into long- and short-range flows and classified into categories depending on the path followed by the air masses. Flows from the North Atlantic Ocean were much more írequent than flows from continental sectors. In addition, seasonal variations of lhe sector frequencies were studied and synoplic meteorological patterns were assocíated with each trajectory category.