A New Index About the Walker Circulation

The Walker circulation (WC) has always been an important issue in atmospheric science research due to the association between the WC and tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST), and between the WC and ENSO events. In this paper, a new index-Omega index (OMGI) - is constructed for WC characterization based on the NCEP / NCAR reanalysis data of monthly mean vertical velocity in recent 70 years (1948-2017). Results show that the OMGI can accurately depict the variation characteristics of WC on seasonal, annual and decadal time-scales. There is a significant inverse correlation between the OMGI and equatorial eastern and central Pacific SST. Meanwhile, the peak of the OMGI appears ahead of the ENSO peak, and therefore is able to reflect the SST in the equatorial Pacific. Especially, in 35 ENSO events, the peak of the OMGI appears earlier than Ni?o 3.4 index for 19 times with 2.6 months ahead on average. In 16 El Ni?o events, the peak of the OMGI occurs ahead of the El Ni?o for 9 times with 4 months ahead on average. In 19 La Ni?a events, the OMGI peak arises 10 times earlier than the La Ni?a peak, with an average of 1.4 months ahead. OMGI shows obvious leading effect and stability over ENSO events with different strengths and types of single peak and multi peaks: the peak of the OMGI keeps about 2-3 months ahead of the ENSO. Compared with other WC indexes such as UWI and SPLI, OMGI has some advantages in the ability to describe WC changes and present the probability and thetime of prediction of ENSO event peaks.     

长江中下游地区2010/2011年秋冬春连旱成因再分析

基于长江中下游70个气象站点逐月降水和CRU逐月降水格点数据、NOAA逐月海温数据以及NCEP/NCAR逐月再分析数据,分析长江中下游地区2010/2011年秋冬春连旱的时空特征,进一步探讨此次连旱的可能成因。结果表明:(1)2010/2011年长江中下游区域性秋冬春连旱事件始于2010年10月,止于2011年6月,其中2011年春季(特别是4月)干旱程度最重,大部分地区为重旱和特旱;(2)此次连旱事件受拉尼娜事件影响,赤道西太平洋海温异常偏暖、冬春季印度洋和黑潮区海温异常偏冷,使得Walker环流上升支和局地Hadley环流显著增强、西太平洋副热带高压显著偏弱,长江中下游地区始终处于下沉气流控制下,且水汽输送减少;(3)自2010年秋季,乌拉尔山阻塞高压、贝加尔湖阻塞高压和鄂霍次克海阻塞高压轮番控制中高纬度地区,使得西伯利亚高压和阿留申低压持续增强,冬季风自秋季便开始影响中国东部地区,并一直持续到2011年春季,长江中下游地区受干冷的偏北气流控制,进一步阻碍了来自低纬的暖湿气流向本地输送,不利于降水的形成。     

一种大范围干旱的识别方法及其应用

基于日本APHRO格点降水数据计算格点SPI序列,兼顾时空连续性,定义了一种大范围长历时干旱的识别方法。该方法以我国国土面积的10%作为大范围干旱事件影响范围的最小阈值,同时给定了干旱事件影响区域的空间连续和时间连续的判定标准,另辅以干旱烈度计算方法和干旱中心的识别方法,给出了此类干旱事件的面积、历时、烈度及干旱中心的指数定义和事件的识别过程。在此基础上,识别了我国1961—2015年以来的69次大范围干旱事件,得出这69次大范围干旱事件的平均面积指数为30.49%,平均干旱历时为8.15个月,平均干旱烈度为-4.192。利用此方法对1998—2002年发生在华北地区的持续性区域干旱事件进行再分析。结果表明,这一时期的干旱事件不仅局限于华北地区,同时也波及到东北、西北、西南和东南等地,涉及了4次大范围长历时的干旱过程。