scholarly journals Impacts of Late-Spring North Eurasian Soil Moisture Variation on Summer Rainfall Anomalies in Northern East Asia

Author(s):  
Yinghan Sang ◽  
Hong-Li Ren ◽  
Yi Deng ◽  
Xiaofeng Xu ◽  
Xueli Shi ◽  
...  

Abstract This paper reports findings from a diagnostic and modeling analysis that investigates the impact of the late-spring soil moisture anomaly over North Eurasia on the boreal summer rainfall over northern East Asia (NEA). Soil moisture in May in the region from the Kara-Laptev Sea coasts to Central Siberian Plateau is found to be negatively correlated with the summer rainfall from Mongolia to Northeast China. The atmospheric circulation anomalies associated with the anomalously dry soil are characterized by a pressure dipole with the high-pressure center located over North Eurasia and the low-pressure center over NEA, where an anomalous lower-level moisture convergence occurs, favoring rainfall formation. Diagnoses and Modeling experiments demonstrate that the effect of the spring low soil moisture over North Eurasia may persist into the following summer through modulating local surface latent and sensible heat fluxes, increasing low-level air temperature at higher latitudes, and effectively reducing the meridional temperature gradient. The weakened temperature gradient could induce the decreased zonal wind and the generation of a low-pressure center over NEA, associated with a favorable condition of local synoptic activity. The above relationships and mechanisms are vice versa for the prior wetter soil and decreased NEA rainfall. These findings suggest that soil moisture anomalies over North Eurasia may act as a new precursor providing an additional predictability source for better predicting the summer rainfall in NEA.

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (23) ◽  
pp. 5732-5743 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung-Eun Kim ◽  
Song-You Hong

Abstract Numerous modeling studies have shown that soil moisture anomalies in later spring have a significant effect on the summer rainfall anomalies in North America. On the other hand, the role of soil moisture in forming monsoonal precipitation in East Asia has not been identified. This study attempts to clarify the importance of soil moisture on the summer rainfall in late spring in East Asia. The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Regional Spectral Model (RSM) is utilized for 3-month (June–August) simulations in 1998 (above-normal precipitation year) and 1997 (below-normal precipitation year). Initial and boundary conditions are derived from the NCEP–Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis. The control run uses the initial soil moisture from the reanalysis, whereas it is set as a saturation and wilting point for “wet” and “dry” experiments, respectively. The impact of soil moisture anomalies on the simulated summer rainfall in East Asia is not significant. The change in precipitation between the wet and dry experiments is about 10%. A conflict between the local feedback of soil moisture and a change in large-scale circulations associated with the summertime monsoonal circulation in East Asia can be attributed as a reason for this anomaly. It is found that enhanced (suppressed) evaporation from the soil to the atmosphere in wet (dry) initial soil moisture reduces (increases) the land–sea contrast between East Asia and the Pacific Ocean, leading to a weakened sensitivity of the monsoonal circulations to the initial soil moisture. It can be concluded that the impact of the initial soil moisture is significant on the dynamic circulation in East Asia.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Todt ◽  
Pier Luigi Vidale ◽  
Patrick C. McGuire ◽  
Omar V. Müller

<p>Capturing soil moisture-atmosphere feedbacks in a weather or climate model requires realistic simulation of various land surface processes. However, irrigation and other water management methods are still missing in most global climate models today, despite irrigated agriculture being the dominant land use in parts of Asia. In this study, we test the irrigation scheme available in the land model JULES (Joint UK Land Environment Simulator) by running land-only simulations over South and East Asia driven by WFDEI (WATCH Forcing Data ERA-Interim) forcing data. Irrigation in JULES is applied on a daily basis by replenishing soil moisture in the upper soil layers to field capacity, and we use a version of the irrigation scheme that extracts water for irrigation from groundwater and rivers, which physically limits the amount of irrigation that can be applied. We prescribe irrigation for C3 grasses in order to simulate the effects of agriculture, albeit retaining the simpler, widely used 5-PFT (plant functional type) configuration in JULES. Irrigation generally increases soil moisture and evapotranspiration, which results in increasing latent heat fluxes and decreasing sensible heat fluxes. Comparison with combined observational/machine-learning products for turbulent fluxes shows that while irrigation can reduce biases, other biases in JULES, unrelated to irrigation, are larger than improvements due to the inclusion of irrigation. Irrigation also affects water fluxes within the soil, e.g. runoff and drainage into the groundwater level, as well as soil moisture outside of the irrigation season. We find that the irrigation scheme, at least in the uncoupled land-atmosphere setting, can rapidly deplete groundwater to the point that river flow becomes the main source of irrigation (over the North China Plain and the Indus region) and can have the counterintuitive effect of decreasing annual average soil moisture (over the Ganges plain). Subsequently, we will explore the impact of irrigation on regional climate by conducting coupled land-atmosphere simulations.</p>


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (18) ◽  
pp. 7086-7101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zongting Gao ◽  
Zeng-Zhen Hu ◽  
Jieshun Zhu ◽  
Song Yang ◽  
Rong-Hua Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract In this work, the variability of summer [June–August (JJA)] rainfall in northeast China is examined and its predictors are identified based on observational analyses and atmospheric modeling experiments. At interannual time scales, the summer rainfall anomaly in northeast China is significantly correlated with the rainfall anomaly over the Huang-Huai region (32°–38°N, 105°–120°E) in late spring (April–May). Compared with climatology, an earlier (later) rainy season in the Huang-Huai region favors a wet (dry) summer in northeast China. Also, this connection has strengthened since the late 1970s. In addition to the impact of the sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) in the tropical Indian Ocean, the local soil moisture anomalies caused by the rainfall anomaly in the Huang-Huai region in late spring generate summer general circulation anomalies, which contribute to the rainfall anomaly in northeast China. As a result, when compared with the SSTA, the rainfall anomaly in the Huang-Huai region in late spring can be used as another and even better predictor for the summer rainfall anomaly in northeast China. The results from atmospheric general circulation model experiments forced by observed SST confirm the diagnostic results to some extent, including the connection of the rainfall anomaly between the Huang-Huai region in April–May and northeastern China in JJA as well as the influence from SSTA in the tropical Indian Ocean. It is shown that eliminating the internal dynamical processes by using the ensemble mean intensifies the connection, implying that the connection of rainfall variation in the two different seasons/regions may be partially caused by the external forcing (e.g., SSTA in the tropical Indian Ocean).


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (24) ◽  
pp. 35591-35643 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Dong ◽  
J. S. Fu ◽  
K. Huang ◽  
D. Tong

Abstract. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model has been further developed in terms of simulating natural wind-blown dust in this study, with a series of modifications aimed at improving the model's capability to predict the emission, transport, and chemical reactions of dust aerosols. The default parameterization of threshold friction velocity constants in the CMAQ are revised to avoid double counting of the impact of soil moisture based on the re-analysis of field experiment data; source-dependent speciation profiles for dust emission are derived based on local measurements for the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in East Asia; and dust heterogeneous chemistry is implemented to simulate the reactions involving dust aerosol. The improved dust module in the CMAQ was applied over East Asia for March and April from 2006 to 2010. Evaluation against observations has demonstrated that simulation bias of PM10 and aerosol optical depth (AOD) is reduced from −55.42 and −31.97 % in the original CMAQ to −16.05 and −22.1 % in the revised CMAQ, respectively. Comparison with observations at the nearby Gobi stations of Duolun and Yulin indicates that applying a source-dependent profile helps reduce simulation bias for trace metals. Implementing heterogeneous chemistry is also found to result in better agreement with observations for sulfur dioxide (SO2), sulfate (SO42-), nitric acid (HNO3), nitrous oxides (NOx), and nitrate (NO3-). Investigation of a severe dust storm episode from 19 to 21 March 2010 suggests that the revised CMAQ is capable of capturing the spatial distribution and temporal variations of dust aerosols. Model evaluation indicates potential uncertainties within the excessive soil moisture fraction used by meteorological simulation. The mass contribution of fine mode aerosol in dust emission may be underestimated by 50 %. The revised revised CMAQ provides a useful tool for future studies to investigate the emission, transport, and impact of wind-blown dust over East Asia and elsewhere.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunyong Kim ◽  
Jae-Heung Park ◽  
Jong-Seong Kug

Abstract The East Asian countries have experienced heavy rainfalls in boreal summer 2020. Here, we investigate the dynamical processes driving the East Asian rainfall extremes during July and August. The Indian Ocean basin warming in June can be responsible for the anticyclonic anomalies in the western North Pacific (WNP), which contribute to the zonally-elongated rainfalls in East Asia during July through an atmospheric Rossby wave train. In August, the East Asian rainfall increase is also related to the anticyclonic anomalies in the subtropical WNP, although it is located further north. It is suggested that the north tropical Atlantic warming in June partly contributes to the subtropical WNP rainfall decrease in August through a subtropical teleconnection. The rainfall decrease in the subtropical WNP region during August drives the local anticyclonic anomalies that cause the rainfall increase in East Asia. The tropical Indian Ocean anomalously warmed in June and the subtropical WNP rainfall decreased in August 2020, which played a role in modulating the WNP anticyclonic anomalies. Therefore, the record-breaking rainfalls in East Asia occurred during July and August 2020 can potentially be explained by the teleconnections induced by the tropical origins, such as tropical Indian Ocean warming and subtropical WNP rainfall decrease.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 568
Author(s):  
Ademe Mekonnen ◽  
Carl J. Schreck ◽  
Bantwale D. Enyew

This study highlights the influence of convectively coupled Kelvin wave (KW) activity on deep convection and African easterly waves (AEWs) over North Africa during dry and wet boreal summer rainfall years. Composite analysis based on 25 years of rainfall, satellite observed cold cloud temperature, and reanalysis data sets show that KWs are more frequent and stronger in dry Central African years compared with wet years. Deep convection associated with KWs is slightly more amplified in dry years compared with wet years. Further, KW activity over North Africa strengthens the lower level zonal flow and deepens the zonal moisture flux in dry years compared with wet years. Results also show that enhanced KW convection is in phase with above-average AEW variance in dry years. However, enhanced KW convection is out-of-phase with average AEW activity in wet years. In general, this study suggests that KW passage over Africa enhances convective activity and more strongly modulates the monsoon flow and moisture flux during the dry years than wet years.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 2967-2984
Author(s):  
Jianying Li ◽  
Jin-Soo Kim ◽  
Jong-Seong Kug

AbstractGiven their high carbon uptake, the terrestrial ecosystems in the East Asia summer monsoon (EASM) region play an irreplaceable role in the global carbon cycle. Because the rich vegetation growth over East Asia benefits mainly from the sufficient water supply brought by the EASM, which is characterized by a strong intraseasonal oscillation (ISO), the intraseasonal spatiotemporal variations and underlying drivers of photosynthesis activity over East Asia have been comprehensively investigated using the daily gross primary productivity (GPP) and meteorological data. Strong intraseasonal fluctuations of GPP have been identified over the area between the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers (YYR) with a magnitude of 0.4 gC m−2 day−1. The mean power spectrum suggests that 20–50-day variation is the major component of the intraseasonal GPP anomalies over the YYR during the summers of 1980–2013. The 20–50-day ISO of YYR GPP anomalies is modulated by the local 20–50-day precipitation variation via soil moisture, with precipitation (soil moisture) leading GPP by 10 (7) days. The 20–50-day YYR precipitation anomalies are in turn controlled by tropical ISO signals, particularly the convective activity over the western North Pacific. This leading relationship between the 20–50-day atmospheric ISO and GPP suggests a potential for extended-range predictability of vegetation growth.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (13) ◽  
pp. 8157-8180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinyi Dong ◽  
Joshua S. Fu ◽  
Kan Huang ◽  
Daniel Tong ◽  
Guoshun Zhuang

Abstract. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model has been further developed in terms of simulating natural wind-blown dust in this study, with a series of modifications aimed at improving the model's capability to predict the emission, transport, and chemical reactions of dust. The default parameterization of initial threshold friction velocity constants are revised to correct the double counting of the impact of soil moisture in CMAQ by the reanalysis of field experiment data; source-dependent speciation profiles for dust emission are derived based on local measurements for the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in East Asia; and dust heterogeneous chemistry is also implemented. The improved dust module in the CMAQ is applied over East Asia for March and April from 2006 to 2010. The model evaluation result shows that the simulation bias of PM10 and aerosol optical depth (AOD) is reduced, respectively, from −55.42 and −31.97 % by the original CMAQ to −16.05 and −22.1 % by the revised CMAQ. Comparison with observations at the nearby Gobi stations of Duolun and Yulin indicates that applying a source-dependent profile helps reduce simulation bias for trace metals. Implementing heterogeneous chemistry also results in better agreement with observations for sulfur dioxide (SO2), sulfate (SO42−), nitric acid (HNO3), nitrous oxides (NOx), and nitrate (NO3−). The investigation of a severe dust storm episode from 19 to 21 March 2010 suggests that the revised CMAQ is capable of capturing the spatial distribution and temporal variation of dust. The model evaluation also indicates potential uncertainty within the excessive soil moisture used by meteorological simulation. The mass contribution of fine-mode particles in dust emission may be underestimated by 50 %. The revised CMAQ model provides a useful tool for future studies to investigate the emission, transport, and impact of wind-blown dust over East Asia and elsewhere.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 704
Author(s):  
Xiaoxue Yin ◽  
Lian-Tong Zhou ◽  
Jingliang Huangfu

The interdecadal change in the relationship between the East Asia-Pacific (EAP) teleconnection pattern and rainfall over East China during boreal summer (June–August) was investigated using observation and reanalysis datasets during 1951–2018. As proposed in a previous study, summer rainfall in the Yangtze-Huaihe River (YH-R) valley is below (above) normal when a positive (negative) EAP event occurs. Based on the close relationship with the rainfall anomalies, the EAP teleconnection pattern has been widely used in the prediction of summer rainfall variations in the YH-R valley. However, we found that the rainfall anomalies in the YH-R basin associated with the EAP pattern were weaker and less evident after the late 1980s. This finding indicates a decreased relationship between the EAP pattern and YH-R basin summer rainfall after the late 1980s, and a decrease in the quality and skill of seasonal predictions of YH-R basin summer rainfall related to the EAP pattern. This pronounced weakening in the YH-R summer rainfall-EAP pattern connection is attributed to the northeastward displacement of the Japanese action center of the EAP pattern after the late 1980s, which caused weaker anomalous vertical motion and moisture transportation over the YH-R valley. The present research reveals that the interdecadal expansion in the size of the Indo-Pacific warm pool in the late 1980s is likely responsible for the northeastward shift in the Japanese action center of the EAP teleconnection pattern by modulating anomalous convective activities and the northward propagation of the EAP pattern.


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