scholarly journals A Bridging Role of Winter Snow over Northern China and Southern Mongolia in Linking the East Asian Winter and Summer Monsoons

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (22) ◽  
pp. 9849-9862
Author(s):  
Mengmeng Lu ◽  
Zhiming Kuang ◽  
Song Yang ◽  
Zhenning Li ◽  
Hanjie Fan

AbstractEurasian snow, one of the most important factors that influence the Asian monsoons, has long been viewed as a useful predictor for seasonal monsoon prediction. In this study, observations and model simulations are used to demonstrate a bridging role of the winter snow anomaly over northern China and southern Mongolia (NCSM) in the relationship between the East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) and the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). Enhanced snow in NCSM results in local surface and tropospheric cooling, strengthening the EAWM through cold-air intrusion induced by northerly wind anomalies. In turn, the stronger EAWM provides a favorable condition for enhanced snowfall over East Asia to the south, indicating an active snow–EAWM interaction. The continental cooling could be maintained until summer due to the memory effect of snowmelt and moistening as well as the snow–monsoon interaction in the spring, causing changes in the meridional temperature gradient and associated upper-level westerlies in the summer. The interaction between the strengthened westerlies over the northern Tibetan Plateau and the topography of the plateau could lead to anomalous downstream convergence and compensating divergence to the south. Therefore, anomalous cyclonic circulation and increased rainfall occur over northeastern China and the Korean Peninsula, but anticyclonic circulation and decreased rainfall appear over the subtropical East Asia–Pacific region. Moreover, limited analysis shows that, compared to sea surface temperature feedback, the direct impact of snow anomaly on the EAWM–EASM connection seems more important.

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 58-71
Author(s):  
A. Fedorovskii

The article deals with the prospects for Russia’s “pivot to the East” taking into account main chances as well as risks in the context of growing challenges in East Asia. The author stresses that national and regional misbalances in East Asia are the results of the dynamic development of East Asian countries during the last 15 years. “Middle class trap” is at the agenda as the main common problem in China and ASEAN member countries. The analysis focuses also on such issues as broad scaled corruption and state-controlled legal system, quality of political, social institutions and social lifts, role of nationalism and culture. Regional misbalances in infrastructure and R&D as well as the crisis of regional institutions are characterized as new challenges to integration trends in East Asia and Asia-Pacific area in general. According to the author’s view, there are three different types of policies to meet the domestic challenges and to overcome “middle class trap”: Japanese, South Korean and Chinese. Prime Minister Ikeda’s “income-doubling plan” accompanied by public activity is described as an effective reform-oriented policy. South Korea’s transition from dictatorship to democratic society and more flexible economy is another type of positive reform policy. According to China’s modern domestic strategy, a lot of attention is paid to administrative measures against corruption, modification of social policy, reforms of banks, etc. At the same time, public activities and legal system, in spite of some improvements, are still under rigid administrative control. Meanwhile, the role of law will be crucial factor of successful development of East Asian countries at the stage of “middle class economy”. To a large scale, the prospects for regional integration depend on growing creative role of China (for example, investments into regional infrastructure and establishment of special bank, initiations of the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area). At the same time, China will continue cooperation and dialogue with other countries, first of all with the USA. ASEAN members increase their activity to improve sub-regional cooperation and relations with United States and Japan in order to couterbalance China’s influence in East Asia. Finally, the author describes Russia’s policy towards East Asia and the Pacific, including brief history, main trends and key priorities at the current stage. “Free Vladivostok port” and some other initiatives to realize more flexible economic strategy towards East Asia and Pacific will give opportunity for Russia to promote its integration into the Pacific Area. Transition of Russia’s export structure from resources and energy to innovation goods and services is at the agenda.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Fuller ◽  
Micha V. Jackson ◽  
Tatsuya Amano ◽  
Chi-Yeung Choi ◽  
Robert S. Clemens ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Monitoring migratory species can be extremely challenging. For example, millions of migratory shorebirds migrate from breeding grounds in northern China, Mongolia and Russia to East Asia and Australasia each year, traversing more than 20 countries while on migration. Studies within individual nations have identified rapid declines in many species, yet progress toward a fully unified scheme for continuous tracking of population change at the scale of the entire East Asian-Australasian Flyway has been slow. To reflect on lessons learned and consider how further progress might be made, we review some of the factors that have limited the full emergence of shorebird monitoring in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, including fragmentation among multiple databases, low data readiness, inadequate metadata and gaps in survey coverage. We conclude that while technical solutions for many of these issues do exist, the biggest challenge is to navigate the significant organisational, socio-cultural and resourcing contexts of those people doing the monitoring. Technical solutions alone will not create a cohesive network of people whose local efforts are pooled to create robust flyway-scale monitoring.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 471
Author(s):  
Jiechun Deng ◽  
Leying Zhang ◽  
Jing Ma ◽  
Dorina Chyi

The increasing anthropogenic aerosols (AAs) over East Asia have caused significant regional climate responses, but the role of urban land-use changes which occur simultaneously, in altering these AA-induced changes, is not well understood. Here, the modulation of the AAs’ effect on the East Asian winter (November–January) climate by the urban cover in eastern China was investigated using the Community Atmosphere Model version 5.1 coupled with the Community Land Model version 4. Results show that the winter sulfate aerosol burden is higher from central eastern China to southern Japan in the case with the presence of urban cover than in the case without it, resulting from urban-induced circulation changes. Such aerosol changes markedly increase the cloud fraction and precipitation over northern China and the adjacent ocean to the east, especially convection activities around southern Japan. This leads to a cooling effect near the surface over northern China and in the mid-upper troposphere to the east due to aerosol direct and indirect effects. The resulting circulation responses act to shift the mid-tropospheric East Asian trough southward and the upper-level East Asian westerly jet-stream as well, further supporting the surface changes. These winter climate responses to the urban-modulated aerosols can largely offset or even reverse those to the AAs forcing without the urban cover in the model, especially in northern East Asia. This study highlights the need to consider the modulating role of urban land-use changes in assessing the AAs’ climatic effect over East Asia and other regions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 494-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Jerdén

AbstractMany states partially relinquish sovereignty in return for physical protection from a more powerful state. Mainstream theory on international hierarchies holds that such decisions are based on rational assessments of the relative qualities of the political order being offered. Such assessments, however, are bound to be contingent, and as such a reflection of the power to shape understandings of reality. Through a study of the remarkably persistent US-led security hierarchy in East Asia, this article puts forward the concept of the ‘epistemic community’ as a general explanation of how such understandings are shaped and, hence, why states accept subordinate positions in international hierarchies. The article conceptualises a transnational and multidisciplinary network of experts on international security – ‘The Asia-Pacific Epistemic Community’ – and demonstrates how it operates to convince East Asian policymakers that the current US-led social order is the best choice for maintaining regional ‘stability’.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 1850139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Francois ◽  
Ganeshan Wignaraja

The Asian countries are once again focused on options for large, comprehensive regional integration schemes. In this paper we explore the implications of such broad-based regional trade initiatives in Asia, highlighting the bridging of the East and South Asian economies. We place emphasis on the alternative prospects for insider and outsider countries. We work with a global general equilibrium model of the world economy, benchmarked to a projected 2017 sets of trade and production patterns. We also work with gravity-model based estimates of trade costs linked to infrastructure, and of barriers to trade in services. Taking these estimates, along with tariffs, into our CGE model, we examine regionally narrow and broad agreements, all centered on extending the reach of ASEAN to include free trade agreements with combinations of the northeast Asian economies (PRC, Japan, Korea) and also the South Asian economies. We focus on a stylized FTA that includes goods, services, and some aspects of trade cost reduction through trade facilitation and related infrastructure improvements. What matters most for East Asia is that China, Japan, and Korea be brought into any scheme for deeper regional integration. This matter alone drives most of the income and trade effects in the East Asia region across all of our scenarios. The inclusion of the South Asian economies in a broader regional agreement sees gains for the East Asian and South Asian economies. Most of the East Asian gains follow directly from Indian participation. The other South Asian players thus stand to benefit if India looks East and they are a part of the program, and to lose if they are not. Interestingly, we find that with the widest of agreements, the insiders benefit substantively in terms of trade and income while the aggregate impact on outside countries is negligible. Broadly speaking, a pan-Asian regional agreement would appear to cover enough countries, with a great enough diversity in production and incomes, to actually allow for regional gains without substantive third-country losses. However, realizing such potential requires overcoming a proven regional tendency to circumscribe trade concessions with rules of origin, NTBs, and exclusion lists. The more likely outcome, a spider web of bilateral agreements, carries with it the prospect of significant outsider costs (i.e. losses) both within and outside the region.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Man-houng Lin (林滿紅)

This article deals with Taiwanese civilian emigration and overseas investment in the period of 1940–1945 when Japan engaged the Greater East Asian War. Taiwan in general, and some Taiwanese in particular, helped the reconstruction of Japanese occupied areas in this war. Overseas Taiwanese mainly worked as employees for Japanese stores, companies, mines, plantations, and Japanese government offices, but also opened stores, factories, plantations and banks by themselves. As overseas ethnic Chinese, the Taiwanese civilian emigrants examined in this paper moved in the direction opposite that of other overseas Chinese holding Chinese nationality. The Taiwanese populace expanded overseas to Greater East Asia, while Chinese nationals withdrew from this area and returned to China. Thus, this paper will illustrate how the phrase, “people should fight for their country,” bore different meanings for these two different types of overseas Chinese in the Asia-Pacific War theater of wwii. 1930至40年代,中日學者曾就華僑的定義進行討論。吳主惠將華僑定義為定居於海外的中國人及其後裔,不包括駐外政府官員和留學生。吳氏認為華僑的最嚴格定義,是指定居海外但仍保有中國國籍者。1933年日本大藏省為替局統計臺灣地區約有46,000至47,000名華僑,便是依據這樣的定義。吳氏指出,在此嚴格定義下,華人後裔如不具中國國籍者,便非華僑。另有一種較為寬鬆的定義是: 無論是否具中國國籍,凡定居或曾赴海外的中國人及其後裔皆為華僑,井出季和太即持此見。關於日本統治臺灣時期的臺灣人國籍,根據日本大藏省為替局的解釋,由於馬關條約簽訂後的二年內,臺灣人得自由決定離去與否,留下臺灣者為日本國民。這些成為日本國民的臺灣人或其祖先曾具有中國國民的身分,因而1933年的340萬臺灣人也被視為較寬定義下的華僑。在日本建構所謂的「大東亞共榮圈」時期 (1940–1945),許多不具軍人身分的臺灣人向海外移民或投資,與之相反的是,擁有中國國籍的華僑在此時期則多回歸故里。在大東亞戰爭時期的華人,由於出身不同,「為國而戰」一詞對於他們的意義也因而分歧。 (This article is in English.)


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.


Author(s):  
Randall L. Schweller

This chapter works within the neoclassical realist tradition to examine the role of nationalism in foreign policymaking and the implication for the international politics of East Asia. Whereas the rise of China is an important structural factor necessarily affecting states' security policies throughout East Asia, China's rise does not determine these states' security policies. Rather, domestic politics ultimately determines how a state responds to changing security circumstances. In particular, nationalism can drive states to adopt more belligerent policies than warranted by their strategic environment, thus contributing to heightened bilateral conflicts and regional tension. The chapter argues that, in contemporary East Asia, rising China sets the context of policymaking, but domestic politics has been the primary factor shaping policy.


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