A Possible Impact of Cooling over the Tibetan Plateau on the Mid-Holocene East Asian Monsoon Climate

By using a 9-level global atmospheric general circulation model developed at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP9L-AGCM) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the authors investigated the response of the East Asian monsoon climate to changes both in orbital forcing and the snow and glaciers over the Tibetan Plateau at the mid-Holocene, about 6000 calendar years before the present (6 kyr BP). With the Earth’s orbital parameters appropriate for the mid-Holocene, the IAP9L-AGCM computed warmer and wetter conditions in boreal summer than for the present day. Under the precondition of continental snow and glacier cover existing over part of the Tibetan Plateau at the mid-Holocene, the authors examined the regional climate response to the Tibetan Plateau cooling. The simulations indicated that climate changes in South Asia and parts of central Asia as well as in East Asia are sensitive to the Tibetan Plateau cooling at the mid-Holocene, showing a significant decrease in precipitation in northern India, northern China and southern Mongolia and an increase in Southeast Asia during boreal summer. The latter seems to correspond to the weakening, southeastward shift of the Asian summer monsoon system resulting from reduced heat contrast between the Eurasian continent and the Pacific and Indian Oceans when a cooling over the Tibetan Plateau was imposed. The simulation results suggest that the snow and glacier environment over the Tibetan Plateau is an important factor for mid-Holocene climate change in the areas highly influenced by the Asian monsoon.     

ECHAM4/OPYC3海气耦合模式对东亚季风年循环及其未来变化的模拟

德国马普研究所海气耦合摸式ECHAM4/OPYC3对东亚地区2 m温度年循环的模拟尽管有一些偏差,但还是相当成功的.其模拟的东亚夏季风偏弱,而冬季风偏强,此偏差可能与2 m温度以及西太平洋副热带高压模拟偏差有关.该模式模拟的东亚季风区夏季降水量偏弱,这与上述夏季风环流的模拟结果是一致的.该模式较好地抓住了华北地区经向环流和降水量的年循环特征.利用最新的温室气体和SO2排放方案,即政府间气候变化委员会(IPCC)排放方案特别报告(SRES)的A2和B2方案,通过该模式111年的积分结果讨论了东亚季风气候在21世纪后30年中的变化,其主要结果为:全球变暖导致夏季海陆温差增大和冬季海陆温差减弱,进而使东亚季风环流在夏季加强,冬季减弱.长江流域和华北地区的夏季降水量显著增强,而后者的增强更为显著,使得东亚季风区的夏季多雨区向北延伸;东亚季风区9月份的降水量在两个方案中都显著增加,说明在全球变暖条件下东亚季风区的多雨季节将延迟一个月.     

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.     

Influence of soil moisture in eastern China on the East Asian summer monsoon

The sensitivity of the East Asian summer monsoon to soil moisture anomalies over China was investigated based on ensembles of seasonal simulations(March–September) using the NCEP GCM coupled with the Simplified Simple Biosphere Model(NCEP GCM/SSi B). After a control experiment with free-running soil moisture, two ensembles were performed in which the soil moisture over the vast region from the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze River valley to North China(YRNC) was double and half that in the control, with the maximum less than the field capacity. The simulation results showed significant sensitivity of the East Asian summer monsoon to wet soil in YRNC. The wetter soil was associated with increased surface latent heat flux and reduced surface sensible heat flux. In turn, these changes resulted in a wetter and colder local land surface and reduced land–sea temperature gradients, corresponding to a weakened East Asian monsoon circulation in an anomalous anticyclone over southeastern China, and a strengthened East Asian trough southward over Northeast China. Consequently, less precipitation appeared over southeastern China and North China and more rainfall over Northeast China. The weakened monsoon circulation and strengthened East Asian trough was accompanied by the convergence of abnormal northerly and southerly flow over the Yangtze River valley, resulting in more rainfall in this region.In the drier soil experiments, less precipitation appeared over YRNC. The East Asian monsoon circulation seems to show little sensitivity to dry soil anomalies in NCEP GCM/SSi B.     

Projected changes in South Asian summer monsoon by multi-model global warming experiments

South Asian summer monsoon (June through September) rainfall simulation and its potential future changes are evaluated in a multi-model ensemble of global coupled climate models outputs under World Climate Research Program Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (WCRP CMIP3) dataset. The response of South Asian summer monsoon to a transient increase in future anthropogenic radiative forcing is investigated for two time slices, middle (2031–2050) and end of the twenty-first century (2081–2100), in the non-mitigated Special Report on Emission Scenarios B1, A1B and A2 .There is large inter-model variability in the simulation of spatial characteristics of seasonal monsoon precipitation. Ten out of the 25 models are able to simulate space–time characteristics of the South Asian monsoon precipitation reasonably well. The response of these selected ten models has been examined for projected changes in seasonal monsoon rainfall. The multi-model ensemble of these ten models projects a significant increase in monsoon precipitation with global warming. The substantial increase in precipitation is observed over western equatorial Indian Ocean and southern parts of India. However, the monsoon circulation weakens significantly under all the three climate change experiments. Possible mechanisms for the projected increase in precipitation and for precipitation–wind paradox have been discussed. The surface temperature over Asian landmass increases in pre-monsoon months due to global warming and heat low over northwest India intensifies. The dipole snow configuration over Eurasian continent strengthens in warmer atmosphere, which is conducive for the enhancement in precipitation over Indian landmass. No notable changes have been projected in the El Niño–Monsoon relationship, which is useful for predicting interannual variations of the monsoon.     

云南夏季旱涝与前期冬季环流变化的关系

夏季气候异常的前期信号特征分析一直是短期气候预测工作的重点。利用1948—2004年NCEP/NCAR月平均再分析资料、1961—2004年云南124个站的月平均降水和1948—2003年英国Hadley中心的月平均海温资料, 分析了云南夏季旱涝的时空特征, 探讨了云南夏季旱涝与前期大气环流和大气热力状态变化的关系, 发现云南夏季旱涝前冬12月—1月, 特别是1月东亚中高纬度地区的大气环流变化和赤道附近高低层大气的热力状态对云南夏季旱涝有重要的指示意义, 当前冬东亚大槽强 (弱), 冬季风强 (弱), 赤道附近高低层大气温度偏低 (高) 时, 后期云南夏季降水偏多 (少)。同时, 初步探讨了东亚冬夏季风环流变化的相互联系及热带海温变化的可能影响, 指出冬季到夏季印度洋和赤道西太平洋地区持续的海温异常有可能通过改变夏季海陆的热力对比, 进而影响夏季风活动和云南夏季降水的变化。     

Validating a regional climate model’s downscaling ability for East Asian summer monsoonal interannual variability

Performance of a regional climate model (RCM), WRF, for downscaling East Asian summer season climate is investigated based on 11-summer integrations associated with different climate conditions with reanalysis data as the lateral boundary conditions. It is found that while the RCM is essentially unable to improve large-scale circulation patterns in the upper troposphere for most years, it is able to simulate better lower-level meridional moisture transport in the East Asian summer monsoon. For precipitation downscaling, the RCM produces more realistic magnitude of the interannual variation in most areas of East Asia than that in the reanalysis. Furthermore, the RCM significantly improves the spatial pattern of summer rainfall over dry inland areas and mountainous areas, such as Mongolia and the Tibetan Plateau. Meanwhile, it reduces the wet bias over southeast China. Over Mongolia, however, the performance of precipitation downscaling strongly depends on the year: the WRF is skillful for normal and wet years, but not for dry years, which suggests that land surface processes play an important role in downscaling ability. Over the dry area of North China, the WRF shows the worst performance. Additional sensitivity experiments testing land effects in downscaling suggest the initial soil moisture condition and representation of land surface processes with different schemes are sources of uncertainty for precipitation downscaling. Correction of initial soil moisture using the climatology dataset from GSWP-2 is a useful approach to robustly reducing wet bias in inland areas as well as to improve spatial distribution of precipitation. Despite the improvement on RCM downscaling, regional analyses reveal that accurate simulation of precipitation over East China, where the precipitation pattern is strongly influenced by the activity of the Meiyu/Baiu rainfall band, is difficult. Since the location of the rainfall band is closely associated with both lower-level meridional moisture transport and upper-level circulation structures, it is necessary to have realistic upper-air circulation patterns in the RCM as well as lower-level moisture transport in order to improve the circulation-associated convective rainfall band in East Asia.     

A STUDY ON RELATION BETWEEN EAST ASIAN WINTER MONSOON AND CLIMATE CHANGE DURING RAINING SEASON IN CHINA

1 INTRODUCTION The Asian monsoon and its anomalies play an important role in the global general circulation and climatic change. As an essential component of the monsoon system, the East Asian winter monsoon is not only the most vigorous across the globe …     

Possible Impacts of the Arctic Oscillation on the Interdecadal Variation of Summer Monsoon Rainfall in East Asia

The influences of the wintertime AO (Arctic Oscillation) on the interdecadal variation of summer monsoon rainfall in East Asia were examined. An interdecadal abrupt change was found by the end of the 1970s in the variation of the AO index and the leading principal component time series of the summer rainfall in East Asia, The rainfall anomaly changed from below normal to above normal in central China, the southern part of northeastern China and the Korean peninsula around 1978. However,the opposite interdecadal variation was found in the rainfall anomaly in North China and South China.The interdecadal variation of summer rainfall is associated with the weakening of the East Asia summer monsoon circulation. It is indicated that the interdecadal variation of the AO exerts an influence on the weakening of the monsoon circulation. The recent trend in the AO toward its high-index polarity during the past two decades plays important roles in the land-sea contrast anomalies and wintertime precipitation anomaly. The mid- and high-latitude regions of the Asian continent are warming, while the low-latitude regions are cooling in winter and spring along with the AO entering its high-index polarity after the late 1970s. In the meantime, the precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau and South China is excessive, implying an increase of soil moisture. The cooling tendency of the land in the southern part of Asia will persist until summer because of the memory of soil moisture. So the warming of the Asian continent is relatively slow in summer. Moreover, the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean which are located southward and eastward of the Asian land, are warming from winter to summer. This suggests that the contrast between the land and sea is decreased in summer. The interdecadal decrease of the land-sea heat contrast finally leads to the weakening of the East Asia summer monsoon circulation.     

Assessment of Dynamic Downscaling of the Extreme Rainfall over East Asia Using a Regional Climate Model

This study investigates the capability of the dynamic downscaling method (DDM) in an East Asian climate study for June 1998 using the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University-National Center for Atmospheric Research non-hydrostatic Mesoscale Model (MM5).Sensitivity experiments show that MM5 results at upper atmospheric levels cannot match reanalyses data,but the results show consistent improvement in simulating moisture transport at low levels.The downscaling ability for precipitation is regionally dependent.During the monsoon season over the Yangtze River basin and the pre-monsoon season over North China,the DDM cannot match observed precipitation.Over Northwest China and the Tibetan Plateau (TP),where there is high topography,the DDM shows better performance than reanalyses.Simulated monsoon evolution processes over East Asia,however,are much closer to observational data than reanalyses.The convection scheme has a substantial impact on extreme rainfall over the Yangtze River basin and the pre-monsoon over North China,but only a marginal contribution for Northwest China and the TP.Land surface parameterizations affect the locations and pattern of rainfall bands.The 10-day re-initialization in this study shows some improvement in simulated precipitation over some sub-regions but with no obvious improvement in circulation.The setting of the location of lateral boundaries (LLB) westward improves performance of the DDM.Including the entire TP in the western model domain improves the DDM performance in simulating precipitation in most sub-regions.In addition,a seasonal simulation demonstrates that the DDM can also obtain consistent results,as in the June case,even when another two months consist of no strong climate/weather events.     

Future change of Asian-Australian monsoon under RCP 4.5 anthropogenic warming scenario

We investigate the future changes of Asian-Australian monsoon (AAM) system projected by 20 climate models that participated in the phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). A metrics for evaluation of the model’s performance on AAM precipitation climatology and variability is used to select a subset of seven best models. The CMIP5 models are more skillful than the CMIP3 models in terms of the AAM metrics. The future projections made by the selected multi-model mean suggest the following changes by the end of the 21st century. (1) The total AAM precipitation (as well as the land and oceanic components) will increase significantly (by 4.5 %/°C) mainly due to the increases in Indian summer monsoon (5.0 %/°C) and East Asian summer monsoon (6.4 %/°C) rainfall; the Australian summer monsoon rainfall will increase moderately by 2.6 %/°C. The “warm land-cool ocean” favors the entire AAM precipitation increase by generation of an east-west asymmetry in the sea level pressure field. On the other hand, the warm Northern Hemisphere-cool Southern Hemisphere induced hemispheric SLP difference favors the ASM but reduces the Australian summer monsoon rainfall. The combined effects explain the differences between the Asian and Australian monsoon changes. (2) The low-level tropical AAM circulation will weaken significantly (by 2.3 %/°C) due to atmospheric stabilization that overrides the effect of increasing moisture convergence. Different from the CMIP3 analysis, the EA subtropical summer monsoon circulation will increase by 4.4 %/°C. (3) The Asian monsoon domain over the land area will expand by about 10 %. (4) The spatial structures of the leading mode of interannual variation of AAM precipitation will not change appreciably but the ENSO-AAM relationship will be significantly enhanced.     

Mid-Holocene climate in Europe: what can we infer from PMIP model-data comparisons?

 Within the framework of the PMIP (Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project), we have compared mid-Holocene climate simulations from 16 atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) with new pollen-based reconstructions of the European bioclimatic variables for winter and growing season temperatures as well as annual water budget changes. In winter, some models are able to simulate the reconstructed northeastern warming, due to an increased heat transport from the ocean, associated with a larger north-south pressure gradient over the northern Atlantic. Whereas most models are only able to simulate a strong summer warming, data indicate a shorter and/ or colder growing season in southern Europe and a longer and/or warmer growing season in northwestern Europe. The reconstructed change in annual water budget indicates drier conditions in northwestern Europe and wetter conditions in southern Europe. Some models simulate such moisture changes, due to more summer evaporation over Scandinavia during summer, and more autumn-winter-spring precipitation over southern Europe. To address the PMIP approximation of no change in ocean and land boundary conditions, we have performed short sensitivity experiments to surface boundary conditions (sea-surface-temperatures, vegetation) using one single model. The model-data disagreements over Europe are probably due to the local influence of the surrounding oceans which are not taken into account in the first PMIP simulations. We therefore stress the need for more mid-Holocene SST reconstructions and further analysis of pollen data in the Mediterranean region. Received: 23 February 1998 /Accepted: 19 September 1998     

Simulation of the anthropogenic aerosols over South Asia and their effects on Indian summer monsoon

A regional climate model coupled with a chemistry-aerosol model is employed to simulate the anthropogenic aerosols including sulfate, black carbon and organic carbon and their direct effect on climate over South Asia. The model is driven by the NCAR/NCEP re-analysis data. Multi-year simulations with half, normal and double emission fluxes are conducted. Results show that the model performs well in reproducing present climate over the region. Simulations of the aerosol optical depth and surface concentration of aerosols are also reasonable although to a less extent. The negative radiative forcing is found at the top of atmosphere and largely depended on emission concentration. Surface air temperature decreases by 0.1?C0.5°C both in pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons. The range and intensity of cooling areas enlarge while aerosol emission increases. Changes in precipitation are between ?25 and 25%. Different diversifications of rainfall are showed with three emission scenarios. The changes of precipitation are consistent with varieties of monsoon onset dates in pre-monsoon season. In the regions of increasing precipitation, monsoon onset is advanced and vice versa. In northeast India and Myanmar, aerosols lead the India summer monsoon onset advancing 1?C2 pentads, and delaying by 1?C2 pentads in central and southeast India. These changes are mainly caused by the anomaly of local Hadley circulations and enhancive precipitation. Tibetan Plateau played a crucial role in the circulation changes.     

On the atmospheric dynamical responses to land-use change in East Asian monsoon region

This study aims at (1) exploring dominant atmospheric dynamical processes which are responsible for climate model-simulated land-use impacts on Asian monsoon; and (2) assessing uncertainty in such model simulations due to their skills in simulating detailed monsoon circulations in the region. Firstly, results from a series of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (BMRC) global model simulations of land-use vegetation changes (LUC) in China are analysed. The model showed consistent signals of changes in atmospheric low-level vertical profile and regional circulations responding to LUC. In northern winter, the model-simulated rainfall reduction and surface cooling are associated with an enhanced southward penetration of dry and cold air mass, which impedes warm and humid air reaching the region for generating cold-front rainfall. In its summer, an enhanced cyclonic circulation responding to LUC further blocks the northeast penetration of southwestly summer monsoon flow into the region and results in rainfall decreases and a surface warming. Secondly, we have explored uncertainties in the proposed mechanism operating in the global model. By comparing its results with a set of high-resolution regional model simulations using the same vegetation datasets, it reveals similar changes in winter rainfall but opposite features in summer rainfall responses. In the global model, there is a cyclonic low-level circulation pattern over the South China Sea and adjacent region, an unsatisfactory feature commonly seen in other global climate models. With the reduction in surface roughness following LUC, such a deficiency becomes more prominent which further results in a weakened south/southwestly summer monsoon flow and rainfall reduction. In contrast, in the regional model, its southwestly summer monsoon flow is further enhanced due to the same process as reduced surface roughness. The enhanced monsoon flow further pushes the East Asian monsoon rainfall belt more northward and increases summer rainfall in the Yangtze River region. This study highlights the need for better monsoon simulations in climate models to produce reliable climate change projections in the region.     

Variability and teleconnections of South and East Asian summer monsoons in present and future projections of CMIP5 climate models

Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) model outputs of the South and East Asian summer monsoon variability and their tele-connections are investigated using historical simulations (1861-2005) and future projections under the RCP4.5 scenario (2006-2100). Detailed analyses are performed using nine models having better representation of the recent monsoon teleconnections for the interactive Asian monsoon sub-systems. However, these models underestimate rainfall mainly over South Asia and Korea-Japan sector, the regions of heavy rainfall, along with a bias in location of rainfall maxima. Indeed, the simulation biases, underestimations of monsoon variability and teleconnections suggest further improvements for better representation of Asian monsoon in the climate models. Interestingly, the performance of Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator version 1.0 (ACCESS1.0) in simulating the annual cycle, spatial pattern of rainfall and multi-decadal variations of summer monsoon rainfall over South and East Asia appears to more realistic. In spite of large spread among the CMIP5 models, historical simulations as well as future projections of summer monsoon rainfall indicate multi-decadal variability. These rainfall variations, displaying certain epochs of more rainfall over South Asia than over East Asia and vice versa, suggest an oscillatory behaviour. Teleconnections between South and East Asian monsoon rainfall also exhibit a multi-decadal variation with alternate epochs of strengthening and weakening relationship. Furthermore, large-scale circulation features such as South Asian monsoon trough and north Pacific subtropical high depict zonal oscillatory behaviour with east-west-east shifts. Periods with eastward or westward extension of the Mascarene High, intensification and expansion of the upper tropospheric South Asian High are also projected by the CMIP5 models.     

The coherent large-scale circulation change between dry/wet years over central eastern China simulated by NCAR CAM5

This study evaluates the simulation of the coherent circulation structure correspond to the changes of mid-summer (July–August) rainfall over eastern China (30°–40° N, 110°–120° E) in high-resolution NCAR CAM5. Forced by historical sea surface temperatures (SSTs), the NCAR CAM5 reasonably reproduces coherent changes of temperature and large-scale circulations, corresponding to the changes in rainfall. Results show that when the rainfall decreases over eastern China, the model reproduces a remarkable warm center in the upper troposphere with an anomalous anticyclone appears above and an increase in anomalous westerlies to its north. An anomalous anticyclone also occurs in the lower troposphere, along with anomalous southerlies to its east which indicates strengthening of the East Asian summer monsoon. Both the circulation changes in the upper and lower troposphere favor a decrease in precipitation over central eastern China. There were also good correlations between the simulated upper-tropospheric temperature and other large-scale circulation changes. There are some deficiencies in the NCAR CAM5 simulations in terms of the changes in magnitude and location of the rainfall centers. However, in general, the model reasonably reproduced the coherent configuration of the large-scale circulation patterns and surface rainfall. This study further confirms that the climate variations across East Asia most likely arise from a regional response to global climate change. The well-simulated configuration by NCAR CAM5 also indicates the reliability of the model and its potential to reveal the mechanisms driving the coherent changes of the East Asian summer monsoon system.     

Monsoon circulation interaction with Western Ghats orography under changing climate

In this study, the authors have investigated the likely future changes in the summer monsoon over the Western Ghats (WG) orographic region of India in response to global warming, using time-slice simulations of an ultra high-resolution global climate model and climate datasets of recent past. The model with approximately 20-km mesh horizontal resolution resolves orographic features on finer spatial scales leading to a quasi-realistic simulation of the spatial distribution of the present-day summer monsoon rainfall over India and trends in monsoon rainfall over the west coast of India. As a result, a higher degree of confidence appears to emerge in many aspects of the 20-km model simulation, and therefore, we can have better confidence in the validity of the model prediction of future changes in the climate over WG mountains. Our analysis suggests that the summer mean rainfall and the vertical velocities over the orographic regions of Western Ghats have significantly weakened during the recent past and the model simulates these features realistically in the present-day climate simulation. Under future climate scenario, by the end of the twenty-first century, the model projects reduced orographic precipitation over the narrow Western Ghats south of 16°N that is found to be associated with drastic reduction in the southwesterly winds and moisture transport into the region, weakening of the summer mean meridional circulation and diminished vertical velocities. We show that this is due to larger upper tropospheric warming relative to the surface and lower levels, which decreases the lapse rate causing an increase in vertical moist static stability (which in turn inhibits vertical ascent) in response to global warming. Increased stability that weakens vertical velocities leads to reduction in large-scale precipitation which is found to be the major contributor to summer mean rainfall over WG orographic region. This is further corroborated by a significant decrease in the frequency of moderate-to-heavy rainfall days over WG which is a typical manifestation of the decrease in large-scale precipitation over this region. Thus, the drastic reduction of vertical ascent and weakening of circulation due to ??upper tropospheric warming effect?? predominates over the ??moisture build-up effect?? in reducing the rainfall over this narrow orographic region. This analysis illustrates that monsoon rainfall over mountainous regions is strongly controlled by processes and parameterized physics which need to be resolved with adequately high resolution for accurate assessment of local and regional-scale climate change.     

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.     

年代际气候预测系统IAP DecPreS的海洋同化试验在西北太平洋的海温偏差及其对亚洲夏季风的影响

本文分析了中国科学院大气物理研究所年代际气候预测系统IAP DecPreS的海洋同化试验（简称EnOI-IAU试验）在西北太平洋地区的海表面温度（SST）年循环的模拟技巧,并通过对比IAP DecPreS系统自由耦合历史气候模拟试验结果,在包含海气耦合过程的框架下讨论了耦合模式中西北太平洋夏季SST模拟差异,及其对亚洲季风区夏季季风降水模拟的影响。结果表明,EnOI-IAU试验较好地模拟出了西北太平洋各个季节的SST空间分布,并显著减小了原存在于历史气候模拟试验中持续全年的SST冷偏差。混合层热收支诊断分析表明,包含同化过程在内的海洋过程的模拟差异对西北太平洋海温的模拟提升有重要贡献。夏季,EnOI-IAU试验模拟的印度季风伴随的低层西风较观测偏东、偏强,且高估了赤道西太平洋区域的降水量值、低估了印度洋区域的降水量值。水汽收支分析显示,气旋式环流异常造成的水汽辐合异常是造成亚洲季风区降水模拟差异的主要原因。研究表明,较之历史模拟试验,EnOI-IAU试验中夏季西北太平洋地区SST增暖造成局地对流增强,进而使得局地产生异常上升运动,水汽辐合增强,造成西北太平洋地区降水模拟偏多,激发出低层西风异常及赤道外气旋式环流异常。该低层西风异常导致了北印度洋地区低层辐散异常,减小了原存在于历史试验中印度洋地区的正降水偏差。西北太平洋气旋式环流异常一方面增强了印度夏季风伴随的低层西风,使得更多的水汽从阿拉伯海输送到西太平洋暖池区域,增强了该区域的降水量;另一方面,该气旋式环流异常减小了历史模拟试验中中国南部区域偏强的低层风速,进而提升了模式对东亚低层西南风的模拟能力。     

青藏高原增暖对东亚夏季风的影响——大气环流模式数值模拟研究

20世纪50年代以来,随着全球海表面温度年代际变化和全球变暖现象的出现,东亚夏季风降水和环流场也出现相应的年代际变化。是什么原因引起这个长期的变化趋势？研究表明青藏高原增暖可能是导致东亚夏季风年代际变化的重要因子之一。为了能够更好地理解青藏高原地表状况对下游东亚季风的影响,作者使用德国马普气象研究所大气环流模式（ECHAM）进行一系列数值试验。在两组敏感性试验中,通过改变高原上的地表反照率从而达到改变地表温度的目的。数值试验结果表明:青藏高原增暖有助于增强对流层上层的南亚高压、高原北侧西风急流和高原南侧东风急流以及印度低空西南季风;与此同时,东亚地区低层西南气流水汽输送增强。高原增暖后降水场的变化表现为:印度西北部季风降水增加,长江中下游以及朝鲜半岛梅雨降水增多;在太平洋副热带高压控制下的西北太平洋地区和孟加拉湾东北部,季风降水减少。对数值模拟结果的初步诊断分析表明:在感热加热和对流引起的潜热加热相互作用下,南亚高压强度加强,东亚夏季低层西南季风增大、梅雨锋降水增强,高原东部对流层上层的副热带气旋性环流增加,以及对流层低层的西太平洋副热带高压增强。另外,在青藏高原增暖的背景下,孟加拉湾地区季风降水减弱。本项研究有助于更好地理解东亚夏季风年代际变化特征和未来气候变化趋势。