Changes in global monsoon precipitation and the related dynamic and thermodynamic mechanisms in recent decades

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 1490-1503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zixuan Han ◽  
Tao Su ◽  
Bicheng Huang ◽  
Taichen Feng ◽  
Shulin Qu ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-53
Author(s):  
Meng Zuo ◽  
Wenmin Man ◽  
Tianjun Zhou

AbstractBoth proxy data and climate modeling show divergent responses of global monsoon precipitation to volcanic eruptions. The reason is however unknown. Here, based on analysis of the CESM Last Millennium Ensemble simulation, we show evidences that the divergent responses are dominated by the pre-eruption background oceanic states. We found that under El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) neutral and warm phases initial conditions, the Pacific favors an El Niño-like anomaly after volcanic eruptions, while La Niña-like SST anomalies tend to occur following eruptions under ENSO cold phase initial condition, especially after southern eruptions. The cold initial condition is associated with stronger upper ocean temperature stratification and shallower thermocline over the eastern Pacific than normal. The easterly anomalies triggered by surface cooling over the tropical South America continent can generate changes in SST through anomalous advection and the ocean subsurface upwelling more efficiently, causing La Niña-like SST anomalies. Whereas under warm initial condition, the easterly anomalies fail to develop and the westerly anomalies still play a dominant role, thus forms an El Niño-like SST anomaly. Such SST response further regulates the monsoon precipitation changes through atmospheric teleconnection. The contribution of direct radiative forcing and indirect SST response to precipitation changes show regional differences, which will further affect the intensity and sign of precipitation response in submonsoon regions. Our results imply that attention should be paid to the background oceanic state when predicting the global monsoon precipitation responses to volcanic eruptions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Zuo ◽  
Tianjun Zhou ◽  
Wenmin Man

<p>Both proxy data and climate modeling show divergent responses of global monsoon precipitation to volcanic eruptions. The reason is however unknown. Here, based on analysis of the CESM Last Millennium Ensemble simulation, we show evidences that the divergent responses are dominated by the pre-eruption background oceanic states. We found that under El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) neutral and warm phases initial conditions, the Pacific favors an El Niño-like anomaly after volcanic eruptions, while La Niña-like SST anomalies tend to occur following eruptions under ENSO cold phase initial condition, especially after southern eruptions. The cold initial condition is associated with stronger upper ocean temperature stratification and shallower thermocline over the eastern Pacific than normal. The easterly anomalies triggered by surface cooling over the tropical South America continent can generate changes in SST through anomalous advection and the ocean subsurface upwelling more efficiently, causing La Niña-like SST anomalies. Whereas under warm initial condition, the easterly anomalies fail to develop and the westerly anomalies still play a dominant role, thus forms an El Niño-like SST anomaly. Such SST response further regulates the monsoon precipitation changes through atmospheric teleconnection. The contribution of direct radiative forcing and indirect SST response to precipitation changes show regional differences, which will further affect the intensity and sign of precipitation response in submonsoon regions. Our results imply that attention should be paid to the background oceanic state when predicting the global monsoon precipitation responses to volcanic eruptions.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
June-Yi Lee ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
Kyong-Hwan Seo ◽  
Kyung-Ja Ha ◽  
Akio Kitoh ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 1271-1289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renping Lin ◽  
Tianjun Zhou ◽  
Yun Qian

Abstract With the motivation to identify whether a reasonably simulated atmospheric circulation would necessarily lead to a successful reproduction of monsoon precipitation, the performances of five sets of reanalysis data [NCEP–U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project II (AMIP-II) reanalysis (NCEP-2), 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40), Japanese 25-yr Reanalysis Project (JRA-25), Interim ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim), and Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)] in reproducing the climatology, interannual variation, and long-term trend of global monsoon (GM) precipitation are comprehensively evaluated. To better understand the variability and long-term trend of GM precipitation, the authors also examined the major components of water budget, including evaporation, water vapor convergence, and the change in local column water vapor, based on the five reanalysis datasets. Results show that all five reanalysis datasets reasonably reproduce the climatology of GM precipitation. ERA-Interim (NCEP-2) shows the highest (lowest) skill among the five datasets. The observed GM precipitation shows an increasing tendency during 1979–2011 along with a strong interannual variability, which is reasonably reproduced by five reanalysis datasets. The observed increasing trend of GM precipitation is dominated by contributions from the Asian, North American, Southern African, and Australian monsoons. All five datasets fail in reproducing the increasing tendency of the North African monsoon precipitation. The wind convergence term in the water budget equation dominates the GM precipitation variation, indicating a consistency between the GM precipitation and the seasonal change of prevailing wind.


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 3833-3852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianjun Zhou ◽  
Rucong Yu ◽  
Hongmei Li ◽  
Bin Wang

Abstract Previous examination of changes in global monsoon precipitation over land reveals an overall weakening over the recent half-century (1950–2000). The present study suggests that this significant change in global land monsoon precipitation is deducible from the atmosphere’s response to the observed SST variations. When forced by historical sea surface temperatures covering the same period, the ensemble simulation with the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model, version 2 (CAM2) model successfully reproduced the weakening tendency of global land monsoon precipitation. This decreasing tendency was mainly caused by the warming trend over the central-eastern Pacific and the western tropical Indian Ocean. At the interannual time scale, the global land monsoon precipitation is closely correlated with ENSO. The simulated interannual variation of the global land monsoon index matches well with the observation, indicating that most monsoon precipitation variations arise from the ocean forcing. There are uncertainties between the GPCP and the CMAP data in describing the evolution of global ocean monsoon precipitation. There is very little correspondence between the simulated and the observed global monsoon index over the ocean area. Uncertainties in the satellite data and model deficiencies in describing the ocean monsoon domain are partly to blame. Among the components of global monsoon systems, the Asian–Australian monsoon system has the lowest reproducibility with prescribed SST forcing due to the neglect of air–sea feedback.


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (20) ◽  
pp. 5271-5294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyung-Jin Kim ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
Qinghua Ding

Abstract The global monsoon climate variability during the second half of the twentieth century simulated by 21 coupled global climate models (CGCMs) that participated in the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) is evaluated. Emphasis was placed on climatology, multidecadal trend, and the response of the global monsoon precipitation to volcanic aerosols. The impact of the atmospheric model’s horizontal resolution on the group ensemble mean (GEM; obtained from the three resolution groups) simulations of global monsoon climate is also examined. The CMIP3 CGCMs’ multimodel ensemble simulates a reasonably realistic climatology of the global monsoon precipitation and circulation. The GEMs are also able to capture the gross features of the global monsoon precipitation and westerly domains. However, the spreading among the rainfall GEMs is large, particularly at the windward side of narrow mountains (e.g., the western coast of India, the Philippines, Mexico, and the steep slope of the Tibetan Plateau). Main common biases in modeling rainfall climatology include a northeastward shift of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) in the tropical North Pacific and a southward migration of the North Atlantic ITCZ during boreal winter. The trend in the Northern Hemisphere land monsoon index (NHMI) detected in the CMIP3 models is generally consistent with the observations, albeit with much weaker magnitude. The significant decreasing NHMI trend during 1951–85 and 1951–99 occurs mainly in the models with volcanic aerosols (VOL models). This volcanic signal is detectable by comparison of the forced and free runs. It is estimated that from about one-quarter to one-third of the drying trend in the Northern Hemisphere land monsoon precipitation over the latter half of the twentieth century was likely due to the effects of the external volcanic forcings. On the other hand, the significant increasing trend in the global ocean monsoon index (GOMI) during 1980–99 appears chiefly in those models that are free of volcanic aerosols (No-VOL models). The exclusion of the volcanic aerosols is significant in simulating the positive GOMI trend against the internal variability of each model. These results suggest the climatic importance of the volcanic forcings in the global monsoon precipitation variability.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (17) ◽  
pp. 6947-6966 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiqiang Deng ◽  
Song Yang ◽  
Mingfang Ting ◽  
Yaheng Tan ◽  
Shan He

Global monsoon precipitation (GMP) brings the majority of water for the local agriculture and ecosystem. The Northern Hemisphere (NH) GMP shows an upward trend over the past decades, while the trend in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) GMP is weak and insignificant. The first three singular value decomposition modes between NH GMP and global SST during boreal summer reflect, in order, the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), eastern Pacific (EP) El Niño, and central Pacific (CP) El Niño, when the AMO dominates the NH climate and contributes to the increased trend. However, the first three modes between SH GMP and global SST during boreal winter are revealed as EP El Niño, the AMO, and CP El Niño, when the EP El Niño becomes the most significant driver of the SH GMP, and the AMO-induced rainfall anomalies may cancel out each other within the SH global monsoon domain and thus result in a weak trend. The intensification of NH GMP is proposed to favor the occurrences of droughts and heat waves (HWs) in the midlatitudes through a monsoon–desert-like mechanism. That is, the diabatic heating associated with the monsoonal rainfall may drive large-scale circulation anomalies and trigger intensified subsidence in remote regions. The anomalous descending motions over the midlatitudes are usually accompanied by clear skies, which result in less precipitation and more downward solar radiation, and thus drier and hotter soil conditions that favor the occurrences of droughts and HWs. In comparison, the SH GMP may exert much smaller impacts on the NH extremes in spring and summer, probably because the winter signals associated with SH GMP cannot sufficiently persist into the following seasons.


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