Subdaily to Seasonal Change of Surface Energy and Water Flux of the Haihe River Basin in China: Noah and Noah-MP Assessment

The land surface processes of the Noah-MP and Noah models are evaluated over four typical landscapes in the Haihe River Basin(HRB) using in-situ observations. The simulated soil temperature and moisture in the two land surface models(LSMs) is consistent with the observation, especially in the rainy season. The models reproduce the mean values and seasonality of the energy fluxes of the croplands, despite the obvious underestimated total evaporation. Noah shows the lower deep soil temperature. The net radiation is well simulated for the diurnal time scale. The daytime latent heat fluxes are always underestimated, while the sensible heat fluxes are overestimated to some degree. Compared with Noah, Noah-MP has improved daily average soil heat flux with diurnal variations. Generally, Noah-MP performs fairly well for different landscapes of the HRB. The simulated cold bias in soil temperature is possibly linked with the parameterized partition of the energy into surface fluxes. Thus, further improvement of these LSMs remains a major challenge.     

Evaluation of Weather Research and Forecasting Model Parameterizations under Sea-Breeze Conditions in a North Sea Coastal Environment

Three atmospheric boundary layer(ABL) schemes and two land surface models that are used in the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF) model, version 3.4.1, were evaluated with numerical simulations by using data from the north coast of France(Dunkerque). The ABL schemes YSU(Yonsei University),ACM2(Asymmetric Convective Model version 2), and MYJ(Mellor–Yamada–Janjic) were combined with two land surface models, Noah and RUC(Rapid Update Cycle), in order to determine the performances under sea-breeze conditions. Particular attention is given in the determination of the thermal internal boundary layer(TIBL), which is very important in air pollution scenarios. The other physics parameterizations used in the model were consistent for all simulations. The predictions of the sea-breeze dynamics output from the WRF model were compared with observations taken from sonic detection and ranging, light detection and ranging systems and a meteorological surface station to verify that the model had reasonable accuracy in predicting the behavior of local circulations. The temporal comparisons of the vertical and horizontal wind speeds and wind directions predicted by the WRF model showed that all runs detected the passage of the sea-breeze front. However, except for the combination of MYJ and Noah, all runs had a time delay compared with the frontal passage measured by the instruments. The proposed study shows that the synoptic wind attenuated the intensity and penetration of the sea breeze. This provided changes in the vertical mixing in a short period of time and on soil temperature that could not be detected by the WRF model simulations with the computational grid used. Additionally, among the tested schemes, the combination of the localclosure MYJ scheme with the land surface Noah scheme was able to produce the most accurate ABL height compared with observations, and it was also able to capture the TIBL.     

Some Phenomena of the Interaction Between Vegetation and a Atmosphere on Multiple Scales

This article studies the response of the distribution pattern and the physiological characteristics of the ecosystem to the spontaneous precipitation and the interaction between vegetation and the atmosphere on multiple scales in arid and semi-arid zones, based on measured data of the ecological physiological parameters in the Ordas Plateau of northern China. The results show that the vegetation biomass and the energy use efficiency of photosynthesis are especially sensitive to the annual precipitation; strong and complex interactions exist between the vegetation and the atmosphere on multiple scales leading to supernormal thermal heterogeneity of the underlying surface, the strong vortex movement and turbulence. This study can facilitate understanding of the land surface processes and the influences of global climate change as well as human activities on the human environment in the arid and semi-arid zones. It also aids in improving the parameterization schemes of turbulent fluxes of a heterogeneous underlying surface for land surface processes in climate models.     

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO LAND SURFACE SCHEMES IN WRF MODEL OVER EASTERN CHINA

Two land surface models, Community Land Model (CLM3.5) and NOAH model, have been coupled to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and been used to simulate the precipitation, temperature, and circulation fields, respectively, over eastern China in a typical flood year (1998). The purpose of this study is to reveal the effects of land surface changes on regional climate modeling. Comparisons of simulated results and observation data indicate that changes in land surface processes have significant impact on spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation and temperature patterns in eastern China. Coupling of the CLM3.5 to the WRF model (experiment WRF-C) substantially improves the simulation results over eastern China relative to an older version of WRF coupled to the NOAH-LSM (experiment WRF-N). It is found that the simulation of the spatial pattern of summer precipitation in WRF-C is better than in WRF-N. WRF-C also significantly reduces the summer positive bias of surface air temperature, and its simulated surface air temperature matches more closely to observations than WRF-N does, which is associated with lower sensible heat fluxes and higher latent heat fluxes in WRF-C.     

The Interactive Climate and Vegetation Along the Pole-Equator Belts Simulated by a Global Coupled Model

The interaction between climate and vegetation along four Pole-Equator-Pole （PEP） belts were explored using a global two-way coupled model, AVIM-GOALS, which links the ecophysiological processes at the land surface with the general circulation model （GCM）. The PEP belts are important in linking the climate change with the variation of sea and land, including terrestrial ecosystems. Previous PEP belts studies have mainly focused on the paleoclimate variation and its reconstruction. This study analyzes and discusses the interaction between modern climate and vegetation represented by leaf area index （LAI） and net primary production （NPP）. The results show that the simulated LAI variation, corresponding to the observed LAI variation, agrees with the peak-valley variation of precipitation in these belts. The annual mean NPP simulated by the coupled model is also consistent with PIK NPP data in its overall variation trend along the four belts, which is a good example to promote global ecological studies by coupling the climate and vegetation models. A large discrepancy between the simulated and estimated LAI emerges to the south of 15°N along PEP 3 and to the south of 18°S in PEP 1S, and the discrepancy for the simulated NPP and PIK data in the two regions is relatively smaller in contrast to the LAI difference. Precipitation is a key factor affecting vegetation variation, and the overall trend of LAI and NPP corresponds more obviously to precipitation variation than temperature change along most parts of these PEP belts.     

Agricultural Land Use Effects on Climate over China as Simulated by a Regional Climate Model

The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) is used to investigate the climate effects of land use change related to agriculture over China. The model is driven by the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecast 40-yr Re-Analysis (ERA40)data. Two sets of experiments for 15 yr (1987-2001) are conducted, one with the potential vegetation cover and the other the agricultural land use (AG). The results show that the AG effects on temperature are weak over northern China while in southern China a significant cooling is found in both winter (December-January-February) and summer (June-July-August). The mean cooling in the sub-regions of South China (SC) in winter and the sub-regions of Southeast (SE) China in summer are found to be the greatest,up to 0.5℃ and 0.8℃, respectively. In general, the change of AG leads to a decrease of annual mean temperature by 0.5-1℃ in southern China. Slight change of precipitation in western China and a decrease of precipitation in eastern China are simulated in winter, with the maximum reduction reaching -7.5% over SE. A general decrease of precipitation over northern China and an increase over southern China are simulated in summer,in particular over SE where the increase of precipitation can be up to 7.3%. The AG effects on temperature and precipitation show strong interannual variability. Comparison of the climate effects between AG and the present-day land use (LU) is also performed. In southern China, the ratio of temperature (precipitation)changes caused by AG and LU is greater than (closer to) the ratio of the number of grid cells with changed vegetation cover due to AG and LU variations.     

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.     

基于改进Noah LSM和数值天气预报耦合模式对表层土壤湿度在典型暴雨过程中的模拟

Surface soil moisture has great impact on both meso- and microscale atmospheric processes, especially on severe local convection processes and on the dynamics of short-lived torrential rains. To promote the performance of the land surface model (LSM) in surface soil moisture simulations, a hybrid hydrologic runoff parameterization scheme based upon the essential modeling theories of the Xin’anjiang model and TOPography based hydrological MODEL (TOPMODEL) was developed in preference to the simple water balance model (SWB) in the Noah LSM. Using a strategy for coupling and integrating this modified Noah LSM to the Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System (GRAPES) analogous to that used with the standard Noah LSM, a simulation of atmosphere-land surface interactions for a torrential event during 2007 in Shandong was attempted. The results suggested that the surface, 10-cm depth soil moisture simulated by GRAPES using the modified hydrologic approach agrees well with the observations. Improvements from the simulated results were found, especially over eastern Shandong. The simulated results, compared with the products of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) soil moisture datasets, indicated a consistent spatial pattern over all of China. The temporal variation of surface soil moisture was validated with the data at an observation station, also demonstrated that GRAPES with modified Noah LSM exhibits a more reasonable response to precipitation events, even though biases and systematic trends may still exist.     

Simulation of Effects of Land Use Change on Climate in China by a Regional Climate Model

Climate effects of land use change in China as simulated by a regional climate model (RegCM2)are investigated. The model is nested in one-way mode within a global coupled atmosphere-ocean model(CSIRO R21L9 AOGCM). Two multi-year simulations, one with current land use and the other with potential vegetation cover, are conducted. Statistically significant changes of precipitation, surface air temperature, and daily maximum and daily minimum temperature are analyzed based on the difference between the two simulations. The simulated effects of land use change over China include a decrease of mean annual precipitation over Northwest China, a region with a prevalence of arid and semi-arid areas;an increase of mean annual surfaoe air temperature over some areas; and a decrease of temperature along coastal areas. Summer mean daily maximum temperature increases in many locations, while winter mean daily minimum temperature decreases in East China and increases in Northwest China. The upper soil moisture decreases significantly across China. The results indicate that the same land use change may cause different climate effects in different regions depending on the surrounding environment and climate characteristics.     

Effects of Heterogeneous Vegetation on the Surface Hydrological Cycle

Using the three-layer variable infiltration capacity (VIC-3L) hydrological model and the successive interpolation approach (SIA) of climate factors, the authors studied the effect of different land cover types on the surface hydrological cycle. Daily climate data from 1992 to 2001 and remotely-sensed leaf area index (LAI) are used in the model. The model is applied to the Baohe River basin, a subbasin of the Yangtze River basin, China, with an area of 2500 km2. The vegetation cover types in the Baohe River basin consist mostly of the mixed forest type (85%). Comparison of the modeled results with the observed discharge data suggests that: (1) Daily discharges over the period of 1992–2001 simulated with inputs of remotely-sensed land cover data and LAI data can generally produce observed discharge variations, and the modeled annual total discharge agrees with observations with a mean difference of 1.4%. The use of remote sensing images also makes the modeled spatial distributions of evapotranspiration physically meaningful. (2) The relative computing error (RCE) of the annual average discharge is ?24.8% when the homogeneous broadleaf deciduous forestry cover is assumed for the watershed. The error is 21.8% when a homogeneous cropland cover is assumed and ?14.32% when an REDC (Resource and Environment Database of China) land cover map is used. The error is reduced to 1.4% when a remotely-sensed land cover at 1000-m resolution is used.     

A Two-Moment Bulk Microphysics Coupled with a Mesoscale Model WRF: Model Description and First Results

The Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS) two-moment bulk microphysics scheme was adopted in this study to investigate the representation of cloud and precipitation processes under different environmental conditions.The scheme predicts the mixing ratio of water vapor as well as the mixing ratios and number concentrations of cloud droplets,rain,ice,snow,and graupel.A new parameterization approach to simulate heterogeneous droplet activation was developed in this scheme.Furthermore,the improved CAMS scheme was coupled with the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF v3.1),which made it possible to simulate the microphysics of clouds and precipitation as well as the cloud-aerosol interactions in selected atmospheric condition.The rain event occurring on 27-28 December 2008 in eastern China was simulated using the CAMS scheme and three sophisticated microphysics schemes in the WRF model.Results showed that the simulated 36-h accumulated precipitations were generally agreed with observation data,and the CAMS scheme performed well in the southern area of the nested domain.The radar reflectivity,the averaged precipitation intensity,and the hydrometeor mixing ratios simulated by the CAMS scheme were generally consistent with those from other microphysics schemes.The hydrometeor number concentrations simulated by the CAMS scheme were also close to the experiential values in stratus clouds.The model results suggest that the CAMS scheme performs reasonably well in describing the microphysics of clouds and precipitation in the mesoscale WRF model.     

An Updated Coupled Model for Land-Atmosphere Interaction. Part II： Simulations of Biological Processes

In Part I, the authors succeeded in coupling the spectral atmospheric model （SAMIL_R42L9） developed at the State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences （LASG/IAP/CAS） with the land surface model, Atmosphere-Vegetation-Interaction-Model （AVIM） and analyzed the climate basic state and land surface physical fluxes simulated by R42_AVIM. In this Part Ⅱ, we further evaluate the simulated results of the biological processes, including leaf area index （LAI）, biomass and net primary productivity （NPP） etc. Results indicate that R42_AVIM can simulate the global distribution of LAI and has good consistency with the monthly mean LAI provided by Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. The simulated biomass corresponds reasonably to the vegetation classifications. In addition, the simulated annual mean NPP has a consistent distribution with the data provided by IGBP and MODIS, and compares well with the work in literature. This land-atmosphere coupled model will offer a new experiment tool for the research on the two-way interaction between climate and biosphere, and the global terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle.     

Global and Regional Impacts of Vegetation on the Hydrological Cycle and Energy Budget as Represented by the Community Atmosphere Model （CAM3）

The effects of vegetation and its seasonal variation on energy and the hydrological cycle were examined using a state-of-the-art Community Atmosphere Model （CAM3）. Three 15-year numerical experiments were completed： the first with realistic vegetation characteristics varying monthly （VEG run）, the second without vegetation over land （NOVEG run）, and the third with the vegetation characteristics held at their annual mean values （VEGMEAN run）. In these models, the hydrological cycle and land surface energy budget were widely affected by vegetation. Globaland annual-mean evapotranspiration significantly increased compared with the NOVEG by 11.8% in the VEG run run, while runoff decreased by 13.2% when the realistic vegetation is incorporated. Vegetation plays different roles in different regions. In tropical Asia, vegetation-induced cooling of the land surface plays a crucial role in decreasing tropical precipitation. In middle latitudes and the Amazon region, however, the vegetation-induced increase of evapotranspiration plays a more important role in increasing precipitation. The seasonal variation of vegetation also shows clear influences on the hydrological cycle and energy budget. In the boreal mid-high latitudes where vegetation shows a strong seasonal cycle, evapotranspiration and precipitation are higher in the summer in the VEG run than in the VEGMEAN run.     

Improving the vegetation dynamic simulation in a land surface model by using a statistical-dynamic canopy interception scheme

Canopy interception of incident precipitation, as a critical component of a forest＇s water budget, can affect the amount of water available to the soil, and ultimately vegetation distribution and function. In this paper, a statistical-dynamic approach based on leaf area index and statistical canopy interception is used to parameterize the canopy interception process. The statistical-dynamic canopy interception scheme is implemented into the Community Land Model with dynamic global vegetation model （CLM-DGVM） to improve its dynamic vegetation simulation. The simulation for continental China by the land surface model with the new canopy interception scheme shows that the new one reasonably represents the precipitation intercepted by the canopy. Moreover, the new scheme enhances the water availability in the root zone for vegetation growth, especially in the densely vegetated and semi-arid areas, and improves the model＇s performance of potential vegetation simulation.     

Use of a land surface model to evaluate the observed soil moisture of grassland at the Tongyu reference site

A land surface model driven by the continuous three-year observed meteorological data with a time interval of 30 minutes at the Tongyu station, a reference site of the Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period （CEOP）, was used to evaluate the observation bias of soil moisture （SM） data and analyze the variation of SM at different time scales. The saline-alkaline soil of the grassland at the Tongyu site makes the measured SM too high, especially in boreal summer of 2003-05. The simulated annual mean SM has the lowest value in 2004 and its three-year variation corresponds to the change of precipitation, whereas the observation shows the increasing trend from 2003 to 2005. Compared to the variation range between -60% and 40% for the anomaly percentage of the simulated daily mean SM during May-October of 2004, the measured data show the higher values more than 40%. The magnitude of the variation trend of the observed daily mean SM in 2003 and 2005 is generally consistent with the simulation. The largest deficiency for the soil moisture observation of the grassland is the overestimated value in the drought year with less precipitation. The simulated monthly mean SM has the lowest value in March due to the large contribution of evaporation relative to precipitation and this phenomenon can not be reproduced in the observation.     

Satellite-Based Monitoring of Decadal Soil Salinization and Climate Effects in a Semi-arid Region of China

Soil salinization is a common phenomenon that affects both the environment and the socio-economy in arid and semi-arid regions; it is also an important aspect of land cover change. In this study, we integrated multi-sensor remote sensing data with a field survey to analyze processes of soil salinization in a semi-arid area in China from 1979 to 2009. Generally, the area of salt-affected soils increased by 0.28% per year with remarkable acceleration from 1999 to 2009 (0.42% increase per year). In contrast, the area of surface water bodies showed a decreasing trend (-0.08% per year) in the same period. Decreases in precipitation and increases in aridity due to annual (especially summer) warming provided a favorable condition for soil salinization. The relatively flat terrain favored waterlogging at the surface, and continuous drought facilitated upward movement of soil water and accumulation of surface saline and calcium. Meanwhile, land-use practices also played a crucial role in accelerating soil salinization. The conversion to cropland from natural vegetation greatly increased the demand for groundwater irrigation and aggravated the process of soil salinization. Furthermore, there are potential feedbacks of soil salinization to regional climate. The salinization of soils can limit the efficiency of plant water use as well as photosynthesis; therefore, it reduces the amount of carbon sequestrated by terrestrial ecosystem. Soil salinization also reduces the absorbed solar radiation by increasing land surface albedo. Such conversions of land cover significantly change the energy and water balance between land and atmosphere.     

Implementation of a Surface Runoff Model with Horton and Dunne Mechanisms into the Regional Climate Model RegCM_NCC

A surface runoff parameterization scheme that dynamically represents both Horton and Dunne runoff generation mechanisms within a model grid cell together with a consideration of the subgrid-scaie soil heterogeneity, is implemented into the National Climate Center regional climate model （RegCM_NCC）. The effects of the modified surface runoff scheme on RegCMANCC performance are tested with an abnormal heavy rainfall process which occurred in summer 1998. Simulated results show that the model with the original surface runoff scheme （noted as CTL） basically captures the spatial pattern of precipitation, circulation and land surface variables, but generally overestimates rainfall compared to observations. The model with the new surface runoff scheme （noted as NRM） reasonably reproduces the distribution pattern of various variables and effectively diminishes the excessive precipitation in the CTL. The processes involved in the improvement of NRM-simulated rainfall may be as follows： with the new surface runoff scheme, simulated surface runoff is larger, soil moisture and evaporation （latent heat flux） are decreased, the available water into the atmosphere is decreased; correspondingly, the atmosphere is drier and rainfall is decreased through various processes. Therefore, the implementation of the new runoff scheme into the RegCMANCC has a significant effect on results at not only the land surface, but also the overlying atmosphere.     

Influence of Surface Temperature and Emissivity on AMSU-A Assimilation over Land

AMSU-A (Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A) measurements for channels that are sensitive to the surface over land have not been widely assimilated into numerical weather prediction (NWP) models due to complicated land surface features. In this paper, the impact of AMSU-A assimilation over land in Southwest Asia is investigated with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Four radiance assimilation experiments with different land-surface schemes are designed, then compared and verified against radiosonde observations and global analyses. Besides the surface emissivity calculated from the emissivity model and surface temperature from the background field in current WRF variational data assimilation (WRF-VAR) system, the surface parameters from the operational Microwave Surface and Precipitation Products System (MSPPS) are introduced to understand the influence of surface parameters on AMSU-A assimilation over land. The sensitivity of simulated brightness temperatures to different surface configurations shows that using MSPPS surface alternatives significantly improves the simulation with reduced root mean square error (RMSE) and allows more observations to be assimilated. Verifications of 24-h temperature forecasts from experiments against radiosonde observations and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) global analyses show that the experiments using MSPPS surface alternatives generate positive impact on forecast temperatures at lower atmospheric layers, especially at 850 hPa. The spatial distribution of RMSE for forecast temperature validation indicates that the experiments using MSPPS surface temperature obviously improve forecast temperatures in the mountain areas. The preliminary study indicates that using proper surface temperature is important when assimilating lower sounding channels of AMSU-A over land.     

Analysis on the 10-yr Simulation of the Meiyu Precipitation and Its Associated Circulation with the GAMIL Model

The major features of Meiyu precipitation and associated circulation systems simulated by the grid-point atmospheric model of IAP LASG (GAMIL) with Zhang-McFarlane and Tiedtke cumulus parameterization schemes are examined in this paper. The results show that the model with both schemes can reproduce the heavy precipitation center over the Yangtze-Huai River Basin (YHRB) during the Meiyu period. The horizontal and vertical structures of the circulation systems during the Meiyu period are also well simulated,such as the intensive meridional gradients of moisture and μse (pseudo-equivalent temperature), the strong low-level southwesterly flow in the lower troposphere over East China, the location of the westerly jet stream in the upper troposphere, the strong ascending motion in heavy precipitation zone, and compensation downward motion on the northern and southern sides of the heavy precipitation belt. However, obvious discrepancies occur in the simulated temperature field in the mid-lower troposphere,especially with the Zhang-McFarlane scheme. In addition, the simulated Meiyu period (onset and duration) is found to be associated with the temperature difference in the lower atmosphere over the land and ocean, and with the cumulus parameterization schemes. The land-sea thermal contrast (LSTC) simulated by the Zhang-McFarlane scheme increases faster than that in the reanalysis from April to July, and changes from negative to positive at the end of May. Consequently, the simulated Meiyu onset begins in May, one month earlier than the observation. On the other hand, since the LSTC simulated by the Tiedtke scheme is in agreement with the reanalysis during June and July, the simulated Meiyu period is similar to the observation. The different LSTCs simulated by the GAMIL model with the two cumulus parameterization schemes may affect the Meiyu period simulations. Therefore, it is necessary to refine the cumulus parameterization scheme in order to improve the Meiyu precipitation simulation by the GAMIL model.     

Sensitivity of Precipitation over China to Different Cumulus Parameterization Schemes in RegCM4

The effect of different cumulus parameterization schemes(CPSs) on precipitation over China is investigated by using the International Centre for Theoretical Physics(ICTP) Regional Climate Model version 4.3(Reg CM-4.3) coupled with the land surface model BATS1e(Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme version1e). The ERA-interim data are utilized to drive a group of simulations over a 31-yr period from September1982 to December 2012. Two typically sensitive regions, i.e., the eastern Tibetan Plateau(TP; 29°–38°N,90°–100°E) and eastern China(EC; 26°–32°N, 110°–120°E), are focused on. The results show that all the CPSs have well reproduced the spatial distribution of annual precipitation in China. The simulation with the Emanuel scheme shows an overall overestimation of precipitation in China, different from the other three CPSs which only overestimate over northern and northwestern China but underestimate over southern China. Seasonally, the Tiedtke scheme shows the smallest overestimation in winter and summer, and the best simulation of the annual variance of precipitation. Interannual variations of precipitation among the four CPSs are generally simulated better in summer than in winter, and better for entire China than in the subregions of TP and EC. The precipitation trend is simulated better over EC than over TP, and better in summer than in winter. An overestimate(underestimate) of the East Asian summer monsoon index(EASMI) exists in the simulations with the Grell and the Emanuel(the Kuo and the Tiedtke) schemes.The smallest EASMI bias in the Tiedtke simulation could explain its small precipitation bias. A negative correlation between the EASMI and summer precipitation over the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River is found in the Grell and the Emanuel simulations, but was missed by the simulations using the Kuo and the Tiedtke schemes.