Spatial analysis of the factors contributing to the relationship between the transient, meridional eddy sensible, and latent heat flux in the Southern Hemisphere

In this paper principal component analysis (PCA) and singular decomposition (SVD) are used to define the importance of the variables contributing to t he relationship between the transient latent and sensible heat fluxes and t o show their temporal and spatial variation. SVD is offered as an alternati ve means of isolating spatial and temporal structures in data with the adva ntage that it can depict simultaneous space-time variations that are aggreg ates of the results produced by PCA. Both methods of analysis produced two very important uncorrelated modes of variability in January and July, indic ating that the transient heat fluxes are influenced by few controlling fact ors. We suggest that these modes of variability represent the influences of the meridional temperature gradient, atmospheric moisture, and activity wi thin the source and sink regions of the transient heat fluxes. The physical relationships between the heat fluxes that appear to represented by the st atistical modes of variability are discussed.