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In this study, the relationship between AO and winter synoptic temperature variability (STV) over the Northern Hemisphere is examined in 34 CMIP5/CMIP6 model outputs. With significant model bias around the North Pacific and North Atlantic, most models fail to capture the correct AO–STV pattern in historical simulations compared to observations. To investigate the bias of AO–STV relationship simulations, AO-related processes for the connection between AO and winter STV are examined in high pattern score (HPS) models and low pattern score (LPS) models, respectively. Furthermore, the bias of AO impact can be traced back to AO pattern simulations. On the one hand, compared to observations, HPS models can overall capture the intensity in the North Pacific and North Atlantic center of AO. On the other hand, LPS models tend to overestimate the North Pacific center and underestimate the North Atlantic center. In addition, similar to historical simulations, a robust AO–STV relationship can still be found over the Northern Hemisphere in future projections based on HPS models. Meanwhile, the uncertainty of the projected AO–STV relationship in the multimodel ensemble is confined mainly to the North Pacific, consistent with the large diversity of intensity over the North Pacific center of AO, which is related to the uncertainty of the relationship between AO and regional mode variability.

In this study, the relationship between ENSO and winter synoptic temperature variability (STV) over the Asian-Pacific-American region is examined in 26 CMIP5/6 model outputs. Compared to observations, most models fail to simulate the correct ENSO-STV relationship in historical simulations. To investigate the possible bias in the ENSO-STV simulations, two possible processes for the connection between ENSO and winter STV are examined in high pattern score (HPS) models and low pattern score (LPS) models, respectively. On the one hand, both HPS and LPS models can overall reproduce a reasonable relationship between STV and the mean-flow conditions supporting extratropical eddy development. On the other hand, only HPS models can well capture the relationship between ENSO and the development of extratropical eddies, while LPS models fail to simulate this feature, indicating that the bias in the simulated ENSO-STV relationship among CMIP5/6 models can be traced back to ENSO simulation. Furthermore, the bias of the ENSO simulation is characterized by an unreasonable SST pattern bias, with an excessive westward extension of warm SST anomalies over the western Pacific and weak warm SST anomalies over the equatorial central-eastern Pacific, resulting in the underestimation of the zonal SST anomaly gradient among models. Therefore, the ENSO pattern bias induces an unrealistic circulation and temperature gradient over the Asian-Pacific-American region, affecting the simulations of the ENSO-STV connection. In addition, the ENSO-STV relationship over the Asian-Pacific-American region is still robust in future projections based on HPS models, providing implications for the selection of future climate predictors.

In winter 2018/19, southeastern coastal China experienced extreme warm temperatures that were due to a weak East Asian winter monsoon. On the basis of observations from 10 meteorological stations and reanalysis data, the large-scale circulation patterns associated with this extreme warm winter and the possible driving mechanism of its related sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies are investigated in this study. During this winter, many places in this region reached their highest winter mean temperature record and had more extreme warm days and fewer extreme cold days relative to climatology. According to the circulation patterns during winter 2018/19, several large-scale circulation conditions associated mainly with the weak East Asian winter monsoon are identified: the eastward shift of the Siberian high and a shallower East Asian trough, which is related to the low blocking frequency over the Aleutian region, are both unfavorable for cold-air intrusion southward. Meanwhile, strong low-level southerly wind anomalies over southeastern China are related mainly to the 2018/19 El Niño event. Furthermore, the possible role of SST anomalies over the North Atlantic and tropical western Pacific Oceans is examined by using an atmospheric general circulation model, suggesting that both the “tripole pattern” of North Atlantic SST and tropical western Pacific SST anomalies in winter 2018/19 played a role in influencing the East Asian trough. The combined effect of all of these factors seems to be responsible for this extreme warm winter over southeastern coastal China.

The intensity of interannual variation of spring precipitation over southern China during 1979–2014 and possible reasons for it are investigated in this paper. There is a significant interdecadal change in the intensity of interannual variation of spring precipitation over southern China around 1995/96. The intensity of interannual variation of spring rainfall over South China is stronger during 1979–95 than that during 1996–2014. The possible reason may be the larger amplitude of the sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) in the western Pacific Ocean (WP) before 1995/96. The cooler (warmer) SSTA in WP may trigger an abnormal local anticyclone (cyclone) at lower levels. The anomalous southwesterly (northeasterly) flow at the northwestern flank of the WP anticyclone (cyclone) covers South China, transporting more (less) moisture to South China. Meanwhile, the anomalous winds converge (diverge) in South China at lower levels and diverge (converge) at upper levels, which causes the anomalous ascent (descent) to enhance (reduce) the precipitation over there. However, during 1996–2014, the intensity of interannual variation of spring rainfall over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River valley becomes much stronger than that during 1979–95, which is related to the intensified interannual variation of the atmospheric circulation in the middle and high latitudes over Eurasia. The weak (strong) Siberian high and East Asian trough may reduce (enhance) the northerly wind from the middle and high latitudes. As a result, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River valley are subjected to the anomalous southerly wind, favoring more (less) precipitation over there.

The South China Sea (SCS) connects the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. It is also a key region where the East Asian monsoon system and the Indian monsoon system interact with each other, and it is a direct source of moisture for the subtropical monsoon system of East Asia.

The global mean surface temperature has experienced a rapid warming from the 1980s to the early-2000s, but a muted warming since then, referred to as the global warming hiatus in the literature (Trenberth and Fasullo 2013; Meehl 2015).

The South China Sea is a part of the tropical Indo-western Pacific warm pool. Air–sea interactions on various time scales have been identified in the South China Sea region (Wang et al. 1997; Liang and Wu 2000; Wu and Wang 2001; Wu 2002; Xie et al. 2007a; Wu 2010).

Land covers nearly 30% of the Earth’s surface. It not only provides a place for humans to live, but also bonds all layers of the Earth system organically.

The blue contours in Fig. 7.1a, show that in southern China, Taiwan, and southern Japan, the ratio of climatological springtime (March–April–May, or MAM) rainfall to the annual rainfall is more than 25%. In the mountain areas of Guangdong and Fujian provinces, the ration even approaches 40%.

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is located in the northwest of Southeast Asia, which is the highest plateau in the world.

Southeast Asia (SEA) is bordered by East Asia to the north, by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal to the west, by the Pacific Ocean to the east, and by Australia and the Indian Ocean to the south.

The role of the 50- to 200-hPa zonal wind shear in modulating tropical cyclone (TC) genesis over the western North Pacific (WNP) in May is investigated in this study. Concurrent with the strong cross-tropopause shear over the key region (0°–5°N, 160°–180°E), suppressed convection was observed over the tropical WNP, especially over the South China Sea and the Philippines. The monsoon trough (MT) was confined westward. However, enhanced convection occurred in the weak shear years and the MT extended eastward. This cross-tropopause wind shear is negatively correlated with TC genesis in May, with a decreased (increased) number of TCs corresponding to strong (weak) cross-tropopause wind shear. This cross-tropopause wind shear can be treated as the combined impacts of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events and the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO). When decaying El Nino events coupled with the easterly phase of the QBO were noted, the cross-tropopause wind shear was stronger with weakened convection, and an enhanced western Pacific subtropical high was observed. TCs are rarely generated during these years. In contrast, the modulation of the QBO westerly phase on decaying La Nina events is limited. Affected by the QBO westerly phase, TC genesis in the May following La Nina events is only slightly enhanced. The energy analysis indicates that the combined impacts of the decaying El Nino events and the QBO easterly phase might suppress the barotropic eddy kinetic energy conversion in May, whereas the decaying La Nina events and the QBO west phase act in an opposite manner.

Hainan, an island province of China in the northern South China Sea, experienced two sustained rainstorms in October 2010, which were the most severe autumn rainstorms of the past 60 years. From August to October 2010, the most dominant signal of Hainan rainfall was the 10–20-day oscillation. This paper examines the roles of the 10–20-day oscillation in the convective activity and atmospheric circulation during the rainstorms of October 2010 over Hainan. During both rainstorms, Hainan was near the center of convective activity and under the influence of a lower-troposphere cyclonic circulation. The convective center was initiated in the west-central tropical Indian Ocean several days prior to the rainstorm in Hainan. The convective center first propagated eastward to the maritime continent, accompanied by the cyclonic circulation, and then moved northward to the northern South China Sea and South China, causing the rainstorms over Hainan. In addition, the westward propagation of convection from the tropical western Pacific to the southern South China Sea, as well as the propagation farther northward, intensified the convective activity over the northern South China Sea and South China during the first rainstorm.

The land surface energy exchange depends highly on the surface properties. Little is known of the energy balance over a typical banana plantation of humid tropics. In this study, we examine the characteristics of surface energy exchange over a typical banana field in South China during the period of May 2010 to April 2011 by using the eddy covariance and micrometeorological tower. The results showed that the diurnal and seasonal variations in surface latent heat flux were larger compared with those over the nearby grassland. The dominant energy partitioning varies with season. The latent heat flux was the main consumer of net radiation in summer, whereas the sensible heat flux was the main consumer in winter. The increasing cloud coverage and rain appear to control the surface energy balance with the development of the monsoon. Due to increased afternoon convective cloud systems in the monsoon active period, downward shortwave radiation was dramatically diminished around 14:00 pm. The annual mean Bowen ratio was 0.69, which fell within the range of other vegetated surfaces. The observed surface energy components were not closed, and the ratio of turbulent fluxes to the available energy was about 77 % in October–January and about 85 % in the other months after considering soil heat and air heat storage.

In boreal summer, the southern Indian Ocean (SIO) features more evaporation than precipitation and thus it is a moisture source region for the Asian summer monsoon rainfall. In the present study, the interannual variability of moisture source over the SIO is analysed for boreal summer during 1979-2008. The impacts of local sea surface temperature (SST) and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the moisture source are compared and the possible mechanisms for the SST influence on the moisture source are investigated. The leading mode of the interannual variation of apparent moisture sink ( ) over the SIO displays an obvious out-of-phase relationship over the western-central SIO and the region to the northwest-north of Australia. The interannual variations of over the above two regions have significant positive correlation with local SST. An increase in local SST enhances convection and ascent, leading to more precipitation. Over the western-central SIO, surface winds weaken corresponding to higher SST in the western-central SIO and lower SST to the northwest-north of Australia, leading to less oceanic evaporation. Thus, the variation of the moisture source over the western-central SIO is contributed by both precipitation and evaporation. However, the variation of the moisture source to the northwest-north of Australia is contributed mainly by precipitation. ENSO amplifies anomalous moisture source induced by local SST anomalies. ENSO and local SST work cooperatively to influence the moisture source over the SIO. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and local sea surface temperature (SST) have been regarded as the important factors influencing the precipitation, evaporation and circulation over the Asian-Australian monsoon (AAM) region. The moisture source is determined directly by precipitation and evaporation. This present paper studies the impacts of ENSO and local SST on moisture source in the AAM region during boreal summer. Relative roles of ENSO and local SST are also discussed by using the singular value decomposition (SVD) and conditional SVD (CSVD) methods. The authors identify one major coupled mode between the interannual variations of apparent moisture sink () and SST for the period 1979–2008. Spatial structure of the major mode exhibits two key regions of moisture source, one over the western-central southern Indian Ocean (SIO) where is negative, and the other over the northwest and north side of Australia, where is positive. In the corresponding map of SST, negative values are also seen in the former region, but are positive in the latter region. The interannual variation of moisture source in the AAM region has an outstanding positive correlation with the local SST. Furthermore, ENSO also has a remarkable correlation with the principle component (PC) of the first empirical orthogonal function (EOF) mode of . ENSO and local SST work cooperatively to determine the variations of moisture source in the AAM region.

Simply applying the divergence operator to the horizontal velocity equation in spherical-isobaric coordinates yields a more solvable linear geopotential equation (than the geopotential tendency and the omega equations) for diagnosing the geopotential and its anomalies responsible for global floods and droughts. This geopotential model is freed from the zero-denominator problem caused by the observed neutral stability which affects the geopotential tendency and omega equations. The geopotential equation's forcing terms 2-5 (the direct operation results of the horizontal advection term in the velocity equation) can identify the synoptic signals mixed up by the classical divergence equation's quadratic and Jacobian terms (the manipulated results of the above terms 2-5). Solving this geopotential equation with the successive-over-relaxation method and the neutral stability as calculated from the reanalysis data produces reasonably good reconstructions of the global and local geopotential fields. The additional advantages of the present geopotential model over the geopotential tendency. omega and divergence models are that the geopotential model reveals and explains the following mechanisms which received less attention in previous studies. (1) The saddle patterns favour the high systems. (2) The equatorial easterlies favour the low systems. (3) The contributions of ageostrophic processes associated with jets and saddle flows to the transitions of weather patterns might be overlooked by the geopotential tendency model in which neutral stability and static instability in cold domes as well as jet-induced inertial instability are smoothed out artificially. Copyright (C) 2008 Royal Meterological Society

The variability of the summer rainfall over China is analyzed using the EOF procedure with a new parameter (namely, mode station variance percentage) based on 1951–2000 summer rainfall data from 160 stations in China. Compared with mode variance friction, the mode station variance percentage not only reveals more localized characteristics of the variability of the summer rainfall, but also helps to distinguish the regions with a high degree of dominant EOF modes representing the analyzed observational variable. The atmospheric circulation diagnostic studies with the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis daily data from 1966 to 2000 show that in summer, abundant (scarce) rainfall in the belt-area from the upper-middle reaches of the Yangtze River northeastward to the Huaihe River basin is linked to strong (weak) heat sources over the eastern Tibetan Plateau, while the abundant (scarce) rainfall in the area to the south of the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River is closely linked to the weak (strong) heat sources over the tropical western Pacific.

The mean state and year-to-year variations of the tropospheric temperature fields and their relationship with the establishment of the summertime East Asian monsoon (EAM) and the Indian monsoon (INM) are studied using the NCEP reanalysis data of 15 years (1982-1996). The results show that the seasonal shift of the South Asian High in the upper troposphere and the establishment of the EAM and the INM are closely related to the seasonal warming which causes a reversal of the meridional gradient of upper tropospheric mean temperature over the monsoon regions. On the average of 15 years, the reversal time of the temperature gradient in the EAM region (INM region) is concurrent with (one pentad earlier than) the onset time of the summer monsoon. In most years of the 15-year period, the reversal of temperature gradient coincides or precedes the onset time of the summer monsoon in both the EAM region and the INM region. The results suggest an important role of thermal processes on the establishment of the Asian monsoon. The contributors to the upper tropospheric warming over the EAM region are the strong horizontal warm advection and the diabetic heating against the adiabatic cooling due to upward motion. In the INM region, strong adiabatic heating by subsidence and the diabetic heating are major warming processes against the strong horizontal cold advection related to the persistent northwestlies to the southwestern periphery of the Tibetan Plateau. It appears that the early or late establishment of the Asian summer monsoon is not directly related to the differential warming near the surface.

The ordinary multidimensional reductive perturbation method is generalized so as to apply to the general case including the dissipative factor. With this the corresponding Cubic-Schrodinger equation is deduced, and by the preliminary study of its solution, it shows that it is more admissible to consider atmospheric meso-scale systems as the nonlinear Cubic-Schrodinger waves. With suitable boundary and initial conditions, the Cubic-Schrodinger equation is numerically integrated so as to investigate the possible dynamic mechanism as well as the impacts of the nonlinear action, turbulent friction and topogrphy to the formation of the LLJ. The results indicate that the downward transfer of the momentum and the effect of the surface friction are responsible for the concentration of the momentum in the layer between 850 and 700 hPa. The location of the horizontal concentration of momentum depends on the propagation of momentum, in the process the inertia-gravity internal wave is very important, whereas turbulent friction is unfavourable for or delays the formation of the low level jet.