U.S. Climate Sensitivity Simulated with the NCEP Regional Spectral Model

10-year continuous U.S. climate simulations were conducted with the Regional Spectral Model (RSM) using boundary conditions from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/Dept. of Energy reanalyses and the global PCM (Parallel Climate Model) simulations for present day (1986–1996) andfuture (2040–2050) CO₂ concentrations (about a 36% increasedCO₂). In order to examine the influence of physical parameterization differences as well as grid-resolution, fine resolution RSM simulations (50 km) were compared to coarse resolution (180 and 250 km) RSM simulations, which had resolutions comparable to the T62 reanalysis and PCM simulations. During the winter, the fine resolution RSM simulations provided more realistic detail over the western mountains. During the summer, large differences between the RSM and driving PCM simulations were found. Our results with presentCO₂ suggest that most of the differences between the regionalclimate model simulations and the climate simulations driven by the global model used to drive the regional climate model were not due to the finer resolution of the regional climate model but to the different treatment of the physical processes in the two models, especially when the subgrid scale physics was important, like during summer. Compared to the coarse resolution RSM simulation results, on the other hand, the fine resolution RSM simulations did show improved simulation skills especially when a good boundary condition such as the reanalysis was used to drive the RSM. Under increased CO₂, the driving PCM and downscaled RSM simulations exhibitedwarming over all vertical layers and all regions. Both the RSM and PCM had increased precipitation during the winter, but during the summer, the PCM simulation had an overall precipitation increase mainly due to increased subgrid scale convective activity, whereas the RSM simulations exhibited precipitation decreases and the resulting RSM soil moisture became dryer, especially in the U.S. Southwest. Most of differences in the simulated climate change signals were produced by the distinct model physics rather than by differences in grid resolution.     

太阳辐射日变化对夏季风模拟特征的影响

利用６０°Ｓ－６０°Ｎ范围，有海气耦合但无海流的七层原始方程模式，做了有无太阳辐射日变化的对比试验。结果表明：准定常的平均季风系统的形势受太阳辐射日变化的影响不明显，其主要的影响可能来自海陆和地形分布。但是模式中包含太阳辐射日变化后，大气上下层季风系统强度的模拟得到了改善。太阳辐射日变化在很大程度上影响降水的分布形势，在没有太阳辐射日变化的试验中，大陆内部的降水大大减少，而沿海地区的降水增加。土壤温度和湿度的变化与降水变化对应良好。降水增加和减少的地区呈波状分布。至于对季风发展的影响，结果表明在季风发展的初期，太阳辐射日变化可加快其发展。因此，太阳辐射日变化的引入，可使平衡态较早达到     

土壤湿度年际异常对中国春、夏季气候模拟的影响

基于NCAR大气模式CAM3.1模式,设计了有、无土壤湿度年际异常两组试验对中国区域近40a(1961-2000年)气候进行了模拟。从气候态和年际变率的角度,通过分析两组试验的差值场来探讨土壤湿度年际异常对气候模拟的影响,并初步探讨了影响的可能机制。结果表明:模式模拟的温度和降水对土壤湿度的年际异常非常敏感,土壤湿度的年际变化对中国春夏季气候及其年际变率均有显著影响。当不考虑土壤湿度年际异常时,模式模拟的春夏季平均温度、最高温度、最低温度在我国大范围内降低,春夏季降水在东部大部分地区明显减少,西部增加。而模式模拟的春夏季温度、降水年际变率在中国大部分地区减弱。但当考虑土壤湿度的年际变化,则能在一定程度上提高模式对气候年际变率的模拟能力。在进一步分析表明土壤湿度年际异常时,主要通过改变地表能量通量和环流场,对温度、降水产生影响。当不考虑土壤湿度年际异常时,地表净辐射通量减少,地表温度降低,感热通量减少。感热通量差值场的空间变化和温度差值场的空间变化一致,感热通量对温度有一定影响。而潜热通量差值场的空间变化和降水的差值场的空间变化一致,可见降水受地表潜热通量的影响。土壤湿度年际异常引起的环流场的变化也是导致气候变化的原因之一,地表能量和环流场年际变率的改变对春夏季气候年际变率存在一定影响。     

Climate Changes in the 21st Century over the Asia-Pacific Region Simulated by the NCAR CSM and PCM

The Climate System Model (CSM) and the Parallel Climate Model (PCM), two coupled global climate models without flux adjustments recently developed at NCAR, were used to simulate the 20th century climate using historical greenhouse gas and sulfate aerosol forcing. These simulations were extended through the 21st century under two newly developed scenarios, a business-as-usual case (BAU, CO2≈710 ppmv in 2100) and a CO2 stabilization case (STA550, CO2≈540 ppmv in 2100). The simulated changes in temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture over the Asia-Pacific region (10°-60°N, 55°-155°E) are analyzed, with a focus on the East Asian summer monsoon rainfall and climate changes over the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Under the BAU scenario, both the models produce surface warming of about 3-5℃ in winter and 2-3℃ in summer over most Asia. Under the STA550 scenario, the warming is reduced by 0.5-1.0℃ in winter and by 0.5℃ in summer. The warming is fairly uniform at the low latitudes and does not induce significant changes in the zonal mean Hadley circulation over the Asia-Pacific do main. While the regional precipitation changes from single CSM integrations are noisy, the PCM ensemble mean precipitation shows 10%-30% increases north of ～ 30°N and ～ 10% decreases south of ～ 30°N over the Asia-Pacific region in winter and 10%-20% increases in summer precipitation over most of the region. Soil moisture changes are small over most Asia. The CSM single simulation suggests a 30% increase in river runoff into the Three Gorges Dam, but the PCM ensemble simulations show small changes in the runoff.     

PROJECTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE FOR THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The paper deals with a selection of the climatological baseline, GCM validity and construction of the climate change scenarios for an impact assessment in the Czech territory. The period of 1961–1990 has been selected as the climatological baseline. The corresponding database includes more than 50 monthly mean temperature and precipitation series, and 16 time series of daily meteorological data that contain also the solar radiation data. The 1× CO₂ outputs produced by four GCMs, provided by the CSMT (GISS, GFD30, GFD01, and CCCM), were compared with observed temperature and precipitation conditions in western and central Europe with a particular attention devoted to the Czech territory. The GCM ability to simulate annual cycles of temperature, precipitation and radiation was thoroughly examined. The GISS and CCCM were selected as a basis for constructing climate change scenarios as they simulated reasonably the observed patterns. According to the GISS variant, 2× CO₂ climate assumes a higher winter and lower summer warming, and an increase in annual precipitation amounts. A dangerous combination of the summer temperature increase and declining precipitation amounts is a specific feature of the CCCM scenario. An incremental scenario for temperature and precipitation is based on the combination of prescribed changes in both annual means and annual courses.     

A possible role of solar radiation and ocean in the mid-Holocene East Asian monsoon climate

An atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) and an oceanic general circulation model (OGCM) are asynchronously coupled to simulate the climate of the mid-Holocene period. The role of the solar radiation and ocean in the mid-Holocene East Asian monsoon climate is analyzed and some mechanisms are revealed. At the forcing of changed solar radiation induced by the changed orbital parameters and the changed SST simulated by the OGCM, compared with when there is orbital forcing alone, there is more precipitation and the monsoon is stronger in the summer of East Asia, and the winter temperature increases over China. These agree better with the reconstructed data. It is revealed that the change of solar radiation can displace northward the ITCZ and the East Asia subtropical jet, which bring more precipitation over the south of Tibet and North and Northeast China. By analyzing the summer meridional latent heat transport, it is found that the influence of solar radiation change is mainly to increase the convergence of atmosphere toward the land, and the influence of SST change is mainly to transport more moisture to the sea surface atmosphere. Their synergistic effect on East Asian precipitation is much stronger than the sum of their respective effects.     

INFLUENCES OF DIURNAL CHANGE OF SOLAR RADIATION ON SIMULATED PROPERTIES OF SUMMER MONSOON*

Comparative experiments with and without the diurnal change of solar radiation are made in this paper by use of an air-sea coupled 7-layer primitive equation modeling system in a zonal domain between 60°S and 60°N.The results show that the quasi-stationary patterns of the mean monsoon circulations are not evidently affected by the diurnal change of solar radiation.The main influences may come from the land-sea distribution and the orography.However,the inclusion of the diurnal change of solar radiation into the model system may improve the intensities of the simulated monsoon circulations both at the high and the low levels.It can influence the distributive pattern of precipitation to a larger extent.Without the diurnal change,precipitation in the interior of land would decrease and in the coastal regions it would increase.The changes of the soil temperature and the soil moisture are fairly correspondent to that of precipitation.The areas with increasing precipitation and the areas with decreasing precipitation are distributed in the wave form.As to the influences on the monsoon development,the results indicate that the diurnal change of solar radiation can speed up the development of the monsoon in the early stage.Therefore,the inclusion of the diurnal change of solar radiation can make the model equilibrium state to reach earlier.     

Validation of present-day regional climate simulations over Europe: LAM simulations with observed boundary conditions

 Nested limited-area modelling is one method of down-scaling general circulation model (GCM) climate change simulations. To give credibility to this method the nested limited-area model (LAM) must be shown to simulate local present-day climate conditions fairly accurately. Here seven different European limited-area models driven by observed boundary conditions (operational weather forecast analyses) are validated against observations, and inter-compared for summer and winter months. Relatively large biases are found. In summer large positive surface air temperature biases are found over southeast Europe. The main reason is deficiencies in the surface hydrological schemes causing an unrealistic drying of the soil. In at least one of the models, most likely several of them, an additional factor is an overestimation of incoming solar radiation. Apart from excessive precipitation in mountainous areas in some models they generally show a negative bias due to the drying and decreased advection from the Atlantic. In winter most models have a positive precipitation bias which seems to be caused by an enhancement of advection from the Atlantic and enhanced cyclone activity. Surface air temperature biases are negative probably due to an underestimation of the incoming longwave radiation. Received: 11 December 1996 / Accepted: 17 March 1997     

Climate trends of the North American prairie pothole region 1906–2000

The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is unique to North America. Its millions of wetlands and abundant ecosystem goods and services are highly sensitive to wide variations of temperature and precipitation in time and space characteristic of a strongly continental climate. Precipitation and temperature gradients across the PPR are orthogonal to each other. Precipitation nearly triples from west to east from approximately 300 mm/year to 900 mm/year, while mean annual temperature ranges from approximately 1°C in the north to nearly 10°C in the south. Twentieth-century weather records for 18 PPR weather stations representing 6 ecoregions revealed several trends. The climate generally has been getting warmer and wetter and the diurnal temperature range has decreased. Minimum daily temperatures warmed by 1.0°C, while maximum daily temperatures cooled by 0.15°C. Minimum temperature warmed more in winter than in summer, while maximum temperature cooled in summer and warmed in winter. Average annual precipitation increased by 49 mm or 9%. Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) trends reflected increasing moisture availability for most weather stations; however, several stations in the western Canadian Prairies recorded effectively drier conditions. The east-west moisture gradient steepened during the twentieth century with stations in the west becoming drier and stations in the east becoming wetter. If the moisture gradient continues to steepen, the area of productive wetland ecosystems will shrink. Consequences for wetlands would be especially severe if the future climate does not provide supplemental moisture to offset higher evaporative demand.     

IAP/LASG全球海-陆-气耦合系统模式的纬向平均大气气候态分析(英文)

分海洋和陆地两种情况来讨论IAP/LASG全球海-陆-气耦合系统模式（GOAL）四个版本的结果,并与观测资料进行对比分析。一些重要的大气变量包括表面空气温度,海平面气压和降水率用来评估GOALS模式模拟当代气候和气候变率的能力。总的来说,GOALS模式的四个版本都能够合理地再现观测到的平均气候态和季节变化的主要特征。同时评估也揭示了模式的一些缺陷。可以清楚地看到模拟的全球平均海平面气压的主要误差是在陆地上。陆地上表面空气温度模拟偏高主要是由于陆面过程的影响。值得注意的是降水率模拟偏低主要是在海洋上,而中高纬的陆地降水在北半球冬天却比观测偏高。 通过模式不同版本之间的相互比较研究,可以发现模式中太阳辐射日变化物理过程的引入明显地改善了表面空气温度的模拟,尤其是在中低纬度的陆地上。太阳辐射日变化的引入对热带陆地的降水和中高纬度的冬季降水也有较大改进。而且,由于使用了逐日通量距平交换方案（DFA）,GOALS模式新版本模拟的海洋上的温度变率在中低纬度有了改善。 比较观测和模拟的年平均表面空气温度的标准差,可以发现GOALS模式四个版本都低估了海洋和陆地上的温度变率,文中还对影响观测和模拟温度变率差异的可能原因进行了探讨。     

Mitigating the Effects of Climate Change on the Water Resources of the Columbia River Basin

The potential effects of climate change on the hydrology and water resources of the Columbia River Basin (CRB) were evaluated using simulations from the U.S. Department of Energy and National Center for Atmospheric Research Parallel Climate Model (DOE/NCAR PCM). This study focuses on three climate projections for the 21st century based on a `business as usual' (BAU) global emissions scenario, evaluated with respect to a control climate scenario based on static 1995 emissions. Time-varying monthly PCM temperature and precipitation changes were statistically downscaled and temporally disaggregated to produce daily forcings that drove a macro-scale hydrologic simulation model of the Columbia River basin at 1/4-degree spatial resolution. For comparison with the direct statistical downscaling approach, a dynamical downscaling approach using a regional climate model (RCM) was also used to derive hydrologic model forcings for 20-year subsets from the PCM control climate (1995–2015) scenario and from the three BAU climate(2040–2060) projections. The statistically downscaled PCM scenario results were assessed for three analysis periods (denoted Periods 1–3: 2010–2039,2040–2069, 2070–2098) in which changes in annual average temperature were +0.5,+1.3 and +2.1 °C, respectively, while critical winter season precipitation changes were –3, +5 and +1 percent. For RCM, the predicted temperature change for the 2040–2060 period was +1.2 °C and the average winter precipitation change was –3 percent, relative to the RCM controlclimate. Due to the modest changes in winter precipitation, temperature changes dominated the simulated hydrologic effects by reducing winter snow accumulation, thus shifting summer streamflow to the winter. The hydrologic changes caused increased competition for reservoir storage between firm hydropower and instream flow targets developed pursuant to the Endangered Species Act listing of Columbia River salmonids. We examined several alternative reservoir operating policies designed to mitigate reservoir system performance losses. In general, the combination of earlier reservoir refill with greater storage allocations for instream flow targets mitigated some of the negative impacts to flow, but only with significant losses in firm hydropower production (ranging from –9 percent in Period1 to –35 percent for RCM). Simulated hydropower revenue changes were lessthan 5 percent for all scenarios, however, primarily due to small changes inannual runoff.     

北太平洋冬季次表层热状况及其与中国东部夏季气候的关系

利用北太平洋次表层海温及热容量资料和我国160个台站1951-2002年夏季(6-8月)降水、气温资料,分析了北太平洋冬季次表层热状况的特征,研究了中国区域气候与热容量变化之间的关系,并用SVD方法研究了北太平洋热容量变化与中国东部夏季气候的耦合关系.结果表明:北太平洋冬季次表层海温按其特征可分为40 m和240 m两类,两者的年代际特征都很明显;北太平洋冬季热容量异常变化与其相似,并与中国东部夏季气候异常有较好的耦合关系,北太平洋中部偏北和东南部地区冬季热容量异常偏高时,中国华南和华北区夏季降水将会偏多,华南区夏季气温将会偏低;黑潮延续体及北太平洋中部偏东地区冬季热容量异常偏高和北美西海岸地区异常偏低时,中国东北和长江流域地区夏季降水将会偏少,东北和华北地区夏季气温将会偏低,其关系有着明显的年代际特征.     

Diurnal and seasonal variations of CO2 fluxes and their climate controlling factors for a subtropical forest in Ningxiang

In this study, the diurnal and seasonal variations of CO2 fluxes in a subtropical mixed evergreen forest in Ningxiang of Hunan Province, part of the East Asian monsoon region, were quantified for the first time. The fluxes were based on eddy covariance measurements from a newly initiated flux tower. The relationship between the CO2 fluxes and climate factors was also analyzed. The results showed that the target ecosystem appeared to be a clear carbon sink in 2013, with integrated net ecosystem CO2exchange(NEE), ecosystem respiration(RE), and gross ecosystem productivity(GEP) of-428.8, 1534.8 and1963.6 g C m-2yr-1, respectively. The net carbon uptake(i.e. the-NEE), RE and GEP showed obvious seasonal variability,and were lower in winter and under drought conditions and higher in the growing season. The minimum NEE occurred on12 June(-7.4 g C m-2d-1), due mainly to strong radiation, adequate moisture, and moderate temperature; while a very low net CO2 uptake occurred in August(9 g C m-2month-1), attributable to extreme summer drought. In addition, the NEE and GEP showed obvious diurnal variability that changed with the seasons. In winter, solar radiation and temperature were the main controlling factors for GEP, while the soil water content and vapor pressure deficit were the controlling factors in summer. Furthermore, the daytime NEE was mainly limited by the water-stress effect under dry and warm atmospheric conditions, rather than by the direct temperature-stress effect.     

MM5 Simulations of the China Regional Climate During the Mid-Holocene

Using a regional climate model MM5 nested with an atmospheric global climate model CCM3, a series of simulations and sensitivity experiments have been performed to investigate responses of the mid-Holocene climate to different factors over China. Model simulations of the mid-Holocene climate change, especially the precipitation change, are in good agreement with the geologic records. Model results show that relative to the present day (PD) climate, the temperature over China increased in the mid-Holocene, and the increase in summer is more than that in winter. The summer monsoon strengthened over the eastern China north of 30°N, and the winter monsoon weakened over the whole eastern China; the precipitation increased over the west part of China, North China, and Northeast China, and decreased over the south part of China.The sensitive experiments indicate that changes in the global climate (large-scale circulation background),vegetation, earth orbital parameter, and CO2 concentration led to the mid-Holocene climate change relative to the PD climate, and changes in precipitation, temperature and wind fields were mainly affected by change of the large-scale circulation background, especially with its effect on precipitation exceeding 50%. Changes in vegetation resulted in increasing of temperature in both winter and summer over China, especially over eastern China; furthermore, its effect on precipitation in North China accounts for 25% of the total change.Change in the orbital parameter produced the larger seasonal variation of solar radiation in the mid-Holocene than the PD, which resulted in declining of temperature in winter and increasing in summer; and also had an important effect on precipitation with an effect equivalent to vegetation in Northeast China and North China. During the mid-Holocene, CO2 content was only 280×10-6, which reduced temperature in a very small magnitude. Therefore, factors affecting the mid-Holocene climate change over China from strong to weak are large-scale circulation pattern, vegetation, earth orbital parameter, and CO2 concentration.     

The seasonal climatic simulation of 9000 years before present by using the IAP atmospheric general circulation model

The seasonal cycle of the climate of 9000 years before present was simulated with the IAP two-level atmospheric general circulation model. The incoming solar radiation was specified from the orbital parameters for 9000 years Ago. The boundary conditions of that time were prescribed to the present value because of the small differences between the two. The change in radiation makes temperature to be higher in summer and lower in winter over large areas of the land; and the increased temperature contrast between the land and the ocean strengthens the summer monsoon circulation and increases the precipitation over there. The asymmetry of temperature change between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere and between summer and winter still exists, which agrees with that get from the previous perpetual experiments.     

Present climate and climate change over North America as simulated by the fifth-generation Canadian regional climate model

The fifth-generation Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5) was used to dynamically downscale two Coupled Global Climate Model (CGCM) simulations of the transient climate change for the period 1950–2100, over North America, following the CORDEX protocol. The CRCM5 was driven by data from the CanESM2 and MPI-ESM-LR CGCM simulations, based on the historical (1850–2005) and future (2006–2100) RCP4.5 radiative forcing scenario. The results show that the CRCM5 simulations reproduce relatively well the current-climate North American regional climatic features, such as the temperature and precipitation multiannual means, annual cycles and temporal variability at daily scale. A cold bias was noted during the winter season over western and southern portions of the continent. CRCM5-simulated precipitation accumulations at daily temporal scale are much more realistic when compared with its driving CGCM simulations, especially in summer when small-scale driven convective precipitation has a large contribution over land. The CRCM5 climate projections imply a general warming over the continent in the 21st century, especially over the northern regions in winter. The winter warming is mostly contributed by the lower percentiles of daily temperatures, implying a reduction in the frequency and intensity of cold waves. A precipitation decrease is projected over Central America and an increase over the rest of the continent. For the average precipitation change in summer however there is little consensus between the simulations. Some of these differences can be attributed to the uncertainties in CGCM-projected changes in the position and strength of the Pacific Ocean subtropical high pressure.     

青藏高原冬春季积雪异常对中国春夏季降水的影响

利用1956年12月～1998年12月共42a，青藏高原及其附近地区78个积雪观测站的雪深和我国160站月降水的距平资料，分析了其气候特征，并用SVD方法分析了冬春季积雪异常与春夏季我国降水异常的关系。用区域气候模式RegCM2模拟了青藏高原积雪异常的气候效应并检验了诊断分析的结果。分析表明，雪深异常，尤其是冬季雪深异常是影响中国降水的一个因子。研究证明，高原冬季雪深异常对后期中国区域降水的影响比春季雪深异常的影响更为重要。数值模拟的结果表明，高原雪深和雪盖的正异常推迟了东亚夏季风的爆发日期，减弱了季风强度，造成华南和华北降水减少，而长江和淮河流域降水增加。冬季雪深异常比冬季雪盖异常和春季雪深异常对降水的影响更为显著。机理分析指出，高原及其邻近地区的积雪异常首先通过融雪改变土壤湿度和地表温度，从而改变了地面到大气的热量、水汽和辐射通量。由此所引起的大气环流变化又反过来影响下垫面的特征和通量输送。在湿土壤和大气之间，这样一种长时间的相互作用是造成后期气候变化的关键过程。与干土壤和大气的相互作用过程有本质差别。     

Numerical simulation of the impact of vegetation index on the interannual variation of summer precipitation in the Yellow River Basin

Two sets of numerical experiments using the coupled National Center for Environmental Prediction General Circulation Model （NCEP/GCM T42L18） and the Simplified Simple Biosphere land surface scheme （SSiB） were carried out to investigate the climate impacts of fractional vegetation cover （FVC） and leaf area index （LAI） on East Asia summer precipitation, especially in the Yellow River Basin （YRB）. One set employed prescribed FVC and LAI which have no interannual variations based on the climatology of vegetation distribution; the other with FVC and LAI derived from satellite observations of the International Satellite Land Surface Climate Project （ISLSCP） for 1987 and 1988. The simulations of the two experiments were compared to study the influence of FVC, LAI on summer precipitation interannual variation in the YRB. Compared with observations and the NCEP reanalysis data, the experiment that included both the effects of satellite-derived vegetation indexes and sea surface temperature （SST） produced better seasonal and interannual precipitation variations than the experiment with SST but no interannual variations in FVC and LAI, indicating that better representations of the vegetation index and its interannual variation may be important for climate prediction. The difference between 1987 and 1988 indicated that with the increase of FVC and LAI, especially around the YRB, surface albedo decreased, net surface radiation increased, and consequently local evaporation and precipitation intensified. Further more, surface sensible heat flux, surface temperature and its diurnal variation decreased around the YRB in response to more vegetation. The decrease of surface-emitting longwave radiation due to the cooler surface outweighed the decrease of surface solar radiation income with more cloud coverage, thus maintaining the positive anomaly of net surface radiation. Further study indicated that moisture flux variations associated with changes in the general circulation also contributed to the precipitation interannual variation.     

Mid-Century Ensemble Regional Climate Change Scenarios for the Western United States

To study the impacts of climate change on water resources in the western U.S., global climate simulations were produced using the National Center for Atmospheric Research/Department of Energy (NCAR/DOE) Parallel Climate Model (PCM). The Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) was used to downscale the PCM control (20 years) and three future(2040–2060) climate simulations to yield ensemble regional climate simulations at 40 km spatial resolution for the western U.S. This paper describes the regional simulations and focuses on the hydroclimate conditions in the Columbia River Basin (CRB) and Sacramento-San Joaquin River (SSJ) Basin. Results based on global and regional simulations show that by mid-century, the average regional warming of 1 to 2.5 °C strongly affects snowpack in the western U.S. Along coastal mountains, reduction in annual snowpack was about70% as indicated by the regional simulations. Besides changes in mean temperature, precipitation, and snowpack, cold season extreme daily precipitation increased by 5 to 15 mm/day (15–20%) along theCascades and the Sierra. The warming resulted in increased rainfall at the expense of reduced snowfall, and reduced snow accumulation (or earlier snowmelt) during the cold season. In the CRB, these changes were accompanied by more frequent rain-on-snow events. Overall, they induced higher likelihood of wintertime flooding and reduced runoff and soil moisture in the summer. Changes in surface water and energy budgets in the CRB and SSJ basin were affected mainly by changes in surface temperature, which were statistically significant at the 0.95 confidence level. Changes in precipitation, while spatially incoherent, were not statistically significant except for the drying trend during summer. Because snow and runoff are highly sensitive tospatial distributions of temperature and precipitation, this study shows that (1) downscaling provides more realistic estimates of hydrologic impacts in mountainous regions such as the western U.S., and (2) despite relatively small changes in temperature and precipitation, changes in snowpack and runoff can be much larger on monthly to seasonal time scales because the effects of temperature and precipitation are integrated over time and space through various surface hydrological and land-atmosphere feedback processes. Although the results reported in this study were derived from an ensemble of regional climate simulations driven by a global climate model that displays low climate sensitivity compared with most other models, climate change was found to significantly affect water resources in the western U.S. by the mid twenty-first century.     

Factors favorable to frequent extreme precipitation in the upper Yangtze River Valley

Extreme precipitation events in the upper Yangtze River Valley (YRV) have recently become an increasingly important focus in China because they often cause droughts and floods. Unfortunately, little is known about the climate processes responsible for these events. This paper investigates factors favorable to frequent extreme precipitation events in the upper YRV. Our results reveal that a weakened South China Sea summer monsoon trough, intensified Eurasian-Pacific blocking highs, an intensified South Asian High, a southward subtropical westerly jet and an intensified Western North Pacific Subtropical High (WNPSH) increase atmospheric instability and enhance the convergence of moisture over the upper YRV, which result in more extreme precipitation events. The snow depth over the eastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) in winter and sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) over three key regions in summer are important external forcing factors in the atmospheric circulation anomalies. Deep snow on the Tibetan Plateau in winter can weaken the subsequent East Asian summer monsoon circulation above by increasing the soil moisture content in summer and weakening the land–sea thermal contrast over East Asia. The positive SSTA in the western North Pacific may affect southwestward extension of the WNPSH and the blocking high over northeastern Asia by arousing the East Asian-Pacific pattern. The positive SSTA in the North Atlantic can affect extreme precipitation event frequency in the upper YRV via a wave train pattern along the westerly jet between the North Atlantic and East Asia. A tripolar pattern from west to east over the Indian Ocean can strengthen moisture transport by enhancing Somali cross-equatorial flow.