The early 1950s regime shift in temperature in Taiwan and East Asia

A summer climate regime shift in temperature in Taiwan and East Asia during the early 1950s was identified in this study. The event was characterized by a cooling land-warming ocean dipole in East Asia and the western North Pacific, marking the decreasing land–sea thermal contrast from the 1940s to the 1950s. The corresponding sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly was characterized by the sign flipping of a north–south dipole in the western North Pacific from north/cool-south/warm to north/warm-south/cool, indicating a weakening north–south SST gradient in the area. The corresponding change in mean sea level pressure was characterized by the rising pressure in continental East Asia and the Philippine Sea, and the falling pressure over the extratropical western North Pacific to the east of Japan. This change was the reflection of a weakening thermal low in the continental East Asia, a weakening monsoon trough in the tropical western North Pacific, a strengthening and southwestward-expanding ridge in the subtropical western North Pacific, and a deepening mid-latitude trough over eastern China and Japan. The phase reversal of the SST anomaly in the western North Pacific exhibited the characteristics of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), but lagged behind the phase reversal of the PDO in the extratropical North Pacific by several years. The connection with the PDO is speculated, although the mechanism is not understood. This paper is a contribution to the AMIP-CMIP Diagnostic Sub-project on General Circulation Model Simulation of the East Asian Climate, coordinated by W.-C. Wang.