scholarly journals Effects of Nonuniform Land Surface Warming on Summer Anomalous Extratropical Cyclone Activity and the East Asian Summer Monsoon: Numerical Experiments with a Regional Climate Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (24) ◽  
pp. 10469-10488
Author(s):  
Wanxin Zhang ◽  
Haishan Chen ◽  
Liming Zhou ◽  
Botao Zhou ◽  
Jie Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractPrevious studies detected significant negative correlations between the nonuniform land surface warming and the decadal weakened activities of the summer extratropical cyclones (ECs) over East Asia and the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) after the early 1990s. Here such relationships are further examined and the possible mechanisms are explored via numerical sensitivity experiments with a regional climate model (RegCM4.5). The positive/negative sensible heat flux (SH) anomalies were added as a forcing to a key region near 50°N of East Asia in RegCM4.5 to simulate the observed ground surface temperature (GST) anomalies. The model results suggest that the nonuniform land surface warming over the Lake Baikal area (50°–60°N, 90°–120°E) can indeed cause the weakening of the extratropical cyclogenesis and affect the decadal weakening of the EASM. Warm (cold) GST forcing over the key GST region can lead to decreasing (increasing) atmospheric baroclinicity and related energy conversion of the EC activity over the key EC region (40°–50°N, 90°–120°E), resulting in an evidently weakening (enhancing) of the ECs over East Asia. Meanwhile, precipitation shows a dipole pattern with significantly suppressed (enhanced) precipitation in northern and northeastern China, and slightly enhanced (suppressed) rainfall south of 40°N of East Asia, mainly over the East China Sea. Lake Baikal and its adjacent areas are occupied by a strong anticyclonic (cyclonic) circulation while the southeast coastal areas of China have a relatively weak cyclonic (anticyclonic) circulation accompanied with an anomalous northeasterly (southwesterly) wind to the southeast of the anticyclonic circulation, which is opposite to (coincident with) the atmospheric circulation anomalies that are associated with the second mode of the EASM.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Sun ◽  
Xiaodong Liu ◽  
Zaitao Pan

Abstract. While dust aerosols emitted from major Asian sources such as Taklimakan and Gobi Deserts have been shown to have strong effect on Asian monsoon and climate, the role of dust emitted from Tibetan Plateau (TP) itself, where aerosols can directly interact with the TP heat pump because of their physical proximity both in location and elevation, has not been examined. This study uses the dust coupled RegCM4.1 regional climate model to simulate the spatiotemporal distribution of dust aerosols originating in the TP and their radiative effects on the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) during both heavy and light dust years. Two 20-year simulations with and without the dust emission from TP showed that direct radiative cooling in the mid-troposphere induced by the TP locally produced dust aerosols resulted in an overall anticyclonic circulation anomaly in the low-troposphere centered over the TP region. The northeasterly anomaly in the EASM region reduces its strength considerably. The simulations found a significant negative correlation between the TP column dust load produced by local emissions and the corresponding anomaly in the EASM index (R=−0.41). The locally generated TP dust can cause surface cooling far downstream in eastern Mongolia and northeastern China through stationery Rossby wave propagation. Although contribution to the total Asian dust source from within TP (mainly Qaidam Basin) is relatively small, its impacts on Asian monsoon and climate seems disproportionately large, likely owning to its higher elevation within TP itself.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (22) ◽  
pp. 13731-13745 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Sun ◽  
Xiaodong Liu ◽  
Zaitao Pan

Abstract. While dust aerosols emitted from major Asian sources such as Taklimakan and Gobi deserts have been shown to have strong effect on Asian monsoon and climate, the role of dust emitted from Tibetan Plateau (TP) itself, where aerosols can directly interact with the TP heat pump because of their physical proximity both in location and elevation, has not been examined. This study uses the dust-coupled RegCM4.1 regional climate model (RCM) to simulate the spatiotemporal distribution of dust aerosols originating within the TP and their radiative effects on the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) during both heavy and light dust years. Two 20-year simulations with and without the dust emission from TP showed that direct radiative cooling in the mid-troposphere induced by the TP locally produced dust aerosols resulted in an overall anticyclonic circulation anomaly in the low troposphere centered over the TP region. The northeasterly anomaly in the EASM region reduces its strength considerably. The simulations found a significant negative correlation between the TP column dust load produced by local emissions and the corresponding anomaly in the EASM index (r = −0.46). The locally generated TP dust can cause surface cooling far downstream in Bohai Gulf and the China–North Korea border area through stationary Rossby wave propagation. Although dust from within TP (mainly Qaidam Basin) is a relatively small portion of total Asian aerosols, its impacts on Asian monsoon and climate seems disproportionately large, likely owning to its higher elevation within TP itself.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 739-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haishan Chen ◽  
Fangda Teng ◽  
Wanxin Zhang ◽  
Hong Liao

By using an objective identification and tracking algorithm of the cyclone, the statistics of midlatitude cyclone activity in East Asia during summer for the period 1979–2013 were analyzed. The impact of the midlatitude summer cyclone anomalies in East Asia on the decadal mode of East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) was investigated and possible mechanisms were proposed. The possible reasons for the anomalous cyclone activity from the perspective of land surface thermal forcing were also explored. Results indicate that the midlatitude summer cyclone activity over East Asia exhibits decadal changes in the period of 1979–2013 and is significantly weakened after early 1990s. Further analysis indicates that there is a close relationship between the midlatitude summer cyclone activity over East Asia and the decadal variation of EASM; when the midlatitude summer cyclone activity over East Asia is strong (weak), EASM tends to be intensified (weakened), and the weak cyclone activity after 1993 generally coincides with the decadal weakening of EASM. Moreover, there is a close linkage between the weakening of cyclonic activity after the early 1990s and the nonuniform surface warming of the Eurasian continent. Significant warming to the west of Mongolia tends to weaken the north–south temperature gradient and the atmospheric baroclinicity to its south and eventually can lead to weakening of the midlatitude cyclone activity over East Asia.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (17) ◽  
pp. 6363-6382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zehao Song ◽  
Congwen Zhu ◽  
Jingzhi Su ◽  
Boqi Liu

Abstract The present study used harmonic and multivariate empirical orthogonal function (MV-EOF) analyses to identify the existence of climatological intraseasonal oscillation (CISO) in the diabatic heating, precipitation, and circulation of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). The strongest CISO signals are found in the north of the western North Pacific, possibly because of the horizontal gradient of diabatic heating induced by the seasonal land–sea thermal contrast. Further, the phase relationship between the diabatic heating components maintains the EASM CISO. The first two coupling modes of EASM CISO in the circulation are robust during May through August, with a period of 40–80 days, and exhibit phase locking to the stepwise establishment of the EASM, which reveals the coaction of the Mongolian cyclone (MC) around Lake Baikal at 850 hPa, the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) at 500 hPa, and the South Asian high (SAH) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) at 200 hPa. The first mode shows that the jointly enhanced MC, WNPSH, and SAH correspond to a tripole rainfall anomaly with strong mei-yu and baiu fronts over East Asia. The second mode, however, indicates the eastward and northwestward propagation of MC and WNPSH, respectively, with suppressed SAH, as well as a dipole rainfall anomaly over East Asia. Both the observations and numerical simulation verify the importance of daily diabatic heating and SST in maintaining the CISO modes over the WNP, where the condensation heating related to atmospheric forcing determines the local intraseasonal air–sea interaction.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1521-1534 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Guo ◽  
E. J. Highwood ◽  
L. C. Shaffrey ◽  
A. G. Turner

Abstract. The response of East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) precipitation to long term changes in regional anthropogenic aerosols (sulphate and black carbon) is explored in an atmospheric general circulation model, the atmospheric component of the UK High-Resolution Global Environment Model v1.2 (HiGAM). Separately, sulphur dioxide (SO2) and black carbon (BC) emissions in 1950 and 2000 over East Asia are used to drive model simulations, while emissions are kept constant at year 2000 level outside this region. The response of the EASM is examined by comparing simulations driven by aerosol emissions representative of 1950 and 2000. The aerosol radiative effects are also determined using an off-line radiative transfer model. During June, July and August, the EASM was not significantly changed as either SO2 or BC emissions increased from 1950 to 2000 levels. However, in September, precipitation is significantly decreased by 26.4% for sulphate aerosol and 14.6% for black carbon when emissions are at the 2000 level. Over 80% of the decrease is attributed to changes in convective precipitation. The cooler land surface temperature over China in September (0.8 °C for sulphate and 0.5 °C for black carbon) due to increased aerosols reduces the surface thermal contrast that supports the EASM circulation. However, mechanisms causing the surface temperature decrease in September are different between sulphate and BC experiments. In the sulphate experiment, the sulphate direct and the 1st indirect radiative effects contribute to the surface cooling. In the BC experiment, the BC direct effect is the main driver of the surface cooling, however, a decrease in low cloud cover due to the increased heating by BC absorption partially counteracts the direct effect. This results in a weaker land surface temperature response to BC changes than to sulphate changes. The resulting precipitation response is also weaker, and the responses of the monsoon circulation are different for sulphate and black carbon experiments. This study demonstrates a mechanism that links regional aerosol emission changes to the precipitation changes of the EASM, and it could be applied to help understand the future changes in EASM precipitation in CMIP5 simulations.


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